Keep Calm and Start Grinding
by Madrigal-in-training
Summary: The first Devil Fruit Monkey D. Lucillia finds is an electric blue peach covered in swirly white zeroes and ones. Now there's a glowing box above her head calling her the Gamer and she can't swim anymore. All Lucy knows is that her INT status is depressingly low… fem!Luffy, AceLu, different DF!Luffy, Gamer!Luffy, Zoan!Luffy
1. Geemu Geemu no Mi

Keep Calm and Start Grinding

 _The first Devil Fruit Monkey D. Lucillia finds is an electric blue peach covered in swirly white zeroes and ones. Now there's a glowing box above her head calling her the Gamer and she can't swim anymore. All Lucy knows is that her INT status is depressingly low… fem!Luffy, AceLu, different DF!Luffy, Gamer!Luffy, Zoan!Luffy_

x

One morning, as watery, pale sunlight poured in through the window, a small, dark-haired figure tip-toed over the kitchen tiles. She probably didn't need to, since the old man's snores were reverbating all the way from his bedroom at the other end of the house but Lucy wanted to be sneaky about it. There were biscuits here- the good kind, chocolate and nutty and melt-in-your-mouth from who knows where- that Gramps had brought back from one of his trips. He would probably give her one if she asked but Lucy wanted more than _one_.

' _Where, where, where… Here!'_ The five-year-old slapped her hands over her mouth, barely muffling a squeal of delight, as her prize gleamed on the counter. ' _How do I get up there?'_

There was supposed to be a stool here for Lucy to balance on when she got her breakfast ready but Gramps threw it out the window. It had been right next to the oven and one of the first casualties when Monkey D. Garp tried to make them dinner. The stool had caught aflame, which was a shame since it was her favorite bright red cherry color. Lucy loved shades of red, from sunset wine to vibrant rose to even dusky pinkish-red. She almost always wore the color somewhere on her clothes and today was no different with its scarlet shirt and matching red socks. Her shorts were made of blue denim, comfortable and well-fitting, but probably one of those other things that didn't fit in Foosha.

Monkey D. Lucillia did not fit in Foosha. It was a quiet, stolid village, full of people who had lived there all their lives and didn't particularly want to go anywhere else. They spent their days in steady, no-nonsense work like raising cattle and growing produce, and had little patience for outsiders and their strange ways or newfangled inventions. Afternoons had gossiping wives mend well-worn clothes made from sheep's wool and husbands congregating at the bar to complain goodnaturedly about their spouses. All of the children had a mother and a father and often a sibling or two, unlike herself. People didn't change overmuch, nor want to do so, and the only ones that spent any time by the sea were the local fishermen on their tiny, two-people boats. It was a peaceful, sedate, boring life and if there were any words that didn't describe Lucy, it was those.

There could be any number of reasons for the villagers to dislike her though. Maybe it was because she acted like a boy sometimes, jumping into mud puddles and catching frogs to make the other girls squeal. Maybe it was because she lived differently, with clothes and toys and such brought from all over the world by Gramps, and a house whose biggest room was filled with nothing but books. Maybe it was because she didn't have parents; she had heard the word 'bastard' once or twice and whenever she asked Gramps what it meant, the man's face had darkened and he hadn't answered. None of those reasons seemed fair. Frogs were terribly interesting and Lucy hated standing still. Her clothes were all picked by Gramps and it's not like she had a Mom to sew her anything else. And she didn't even know why they had books! Gramps didn't read all that much and Lucy didn't either.

Lucy never thought about the injustice for long. Thinking made her head hurt and it was difficult to focus on anything but food anyway.

At least Makino-neechan was nice to her. The green-haired barkeeper brought them dinner last night after the roasted-Sea-King-that-would-never-be and it had been delicious. Lucy loved Makino-nee's cooking and luckily for her, she got to eat it often since the young woman lived with her when Gramps wasn't home. Makino-nee had a house of her own but it was much smaller and didn't mind staying here, especially since Gramps paid her well.

Lucy loved it best when Gramps was home though. His visits were never long but she always enjoyed them. Living with Gramps meant bedtime stories of thrilling adventure and candies tucked into the deep pockets of his Marine coat and flying up high when he tossed her into the air. Sometimes it also meant exploding ovens and flying stools but Lucy didn't mind that either. It's not like she was in danger; Gramps wouldn't let her into the kitchen while he cooked.

Without the stool, she would need another way to reach the biscuits. Dark brown eyes scanned the room before settling on a rough-hewn table surrounded by five sturdy, oaken chairs. It was an old and familiar piece, still stained by multicolored crayon wax and scratched-on etches of dragons. Lucy dragged the closest over, making a sharp squeak on the floor, over to the counter. Taking a moment to pause and listen to the rumbling snores- thank the Buddha, Gramps was still asleep- the little girl carefully climbed onto the chair. Balancing on her toes, she leaned forward to reach the snack.

Unfortunately, it was at the very edge, and just barely grazed her fingers. They had a wide counter in the Monkey house, to better fit the Sea King meat that Gramps liked to prepare. The biscuits were lined against the wall and the only way for Lucy to reach it was to slowly crawl up there herself. She did so, and soon had chocolate smears and nutty crumbs lining the outside of her mouth. It didn't take more than a few minutes for the ravenous girl to devour her treat.

' _Yummy.'_ Lucy patted her tummy in satisfaction before looking down woefully at the empty box. She was still hungry. Where else could she find food? ' _There are dinner leftovers in the fridge, right?'_

Intent on securing those steamed snappers for herself, the dark-haired girl almost missed the flash of vivid blue. But Lucy had sharp eyes and a dangerously short attention span, and shortly forgot her plan when she saw the fruit hanging covetously by the window. There was a peach tree planted outside but instead of the reddish-orange fruit she snacked on in the summer, this one was an electric blue color covered in swirly white ones and zeroes. There was a little leaf sticking out of its stem that was pure white, with dark blue concentric circles. Lucy hadn't ever seen it before but damn, if it didn't look delicious.

' _I wonder what type of fruit it is?'_ She briefly wondered before mentally shrugging and pushing away the thought. ' _Mystery fruit!'_

The mystery peach was closer to her than the fridge, hanging _right_ outside the window, so Lucy grabbed it. She had the sense of mind to wash it quickly in the nearby sink, having to scoot over twice to reach it, and remembering Makino-nee's stern warnings to do so. Impatient, Lucy then brought it to her mouth and eagerly took a bite.

"UGH, THIS IS EVEN WORSE THAN GRAMP'S COOKING!"

It tasted like charcoal Sea King liver doused with a liberal dose of sour vinegar pureed right over her tongue. It was, by far, the most disgusting thing Monkey D. Lucillia had ever put into her mouth and she ate Marine _field rations_ once. She promptly spit out the fruit, little bits still managing to get into her throat, and loudly gagged. Any intention of keeping quiet was quickly thrown out the window along with the evil mystery peach.

"THIS IS A CRIME AGAINST PEACHES EVERYWHERE," Lucy wailed, "HOW CAN ANYTHING TASTE SO BAD?!"

Thinking about it, she added. "AND I'M STILL HUNGRY!"

Her screams woke up the exact person she had meaning to sneak around. Not that she noticed until Gramps was crashed into the kitchen, missing the door entirely and creating a not-unfamiliar shape in the wall, with his fist raised. The Marine Vice-Admiral scanned the room for threats, before settling his eyes on his distraught granddaughter. Garp stomped over in his typical forceful way, scooping the little girl up to his chest and growling at the air around them.

"What's wrong, Lucy? Did someone try to attack you?" Garp demanded, critically eyeing her pale skin for any bruises. "...Is that chocolate around your mouth?"

"...No." The dark-eyed girl hiccuped, pointing accusingly out the window. "I ate the most disgusting fruit ever, Gramps! It was awful!"

"So you threw it out the window?" The man briefly grinned. "That's my girl!"

"I still can't get the taste out of my mouth," Lucy lamented. "It's worse than field rations."

"No such thing," Garp rebuked, laughing. "Not unless you count…"

He trailed off, a thought suddenly occurred to him, before he rushed to the window. Lucy had to hold tightly to his arms not to fall off, when the old man leaned over to get a look outside. On the sandy Fooshan soil was the same evil mystery peach as before, glittering in all of its dark and malevolent mystery ways. Lucy made a face at the electric blue fruit and then another one, when she was settled roughly on the counter again.

"Monkey D. Lucillia, did you eat from that fruit?!"

"Yes?" Lucy grabbed her head, suddenly wincing when a Fist of Love hit it. "YEOW! WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR, OLD MAN?"

"STOP CALLING ME OLD, BRAT! YOU JUST ATE A DEVIL FRUIT! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS?" Garp roared back, matching her decibel for decibel. "YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE, YOUNG LADY!"

"WHAT FOR? IT WAS HANGING OUTSIDE IN OUR TREE," Lucy screamed. "What's a Devil Fruit?"

She received another Fist of Love for her troubles. Then Garp grabbed the chair next to the counter, dragged it over to him, making another squeaky sound on the tiles, and gracelessly plopped down. Rubbing his forehead, the still dark-haired man, though there were a few strands of silver present, looked a lot older than he normally did. Lucy wiggled on the counter, feeling guilty.

"A Devil Fruit is a mystery fruit from the sea that gives you a special power," Garp lectured. "But it also takes away your ability to swim. Not that you could swim before, little one, but you'll never learn how to do it now."

Lucy was aghast. "But Makino-nee promised to teach me this summer!"

"I'm sorry, Lucy, but you can't risk that. The second your body touches the ocean, it'll start to sink."

Ire softening at the dismay on Lucy's face, Garp adopted a more upbeat tone. "Devil Fruits do give you special powers! You're not a Logia, since I could hit you, so it's either a Zoan or a Paramecia."

She perked up. "I'll be as strong as you then?"

Lucy didn't feel any stronger but something felt… different now. That itch in her head, to always look around, to always find something new, something novel, had disappeared. Her muscles didn't thrum the way they always did when she was sitting still for too long.

That sent the man roaring into laughter. "Not a chance, Brat! You're one hundred years too early to fight me, Devil Fruit or not. But at least having special powers will help you as a Marine!"

Lucy nodded, absently filtering out Gramp's certainty on her future career choice. The old man hadn't wanted her to enlist in the Corps at first- it was dangerous, and his cute little granddaughter was better off at Foosha, where she could live a peaceful life as a civilian- but he amended that plan when he saw her thirst for adventure. Wanderlust was a common quality in the Monkey family and the moment he saw his Lucilia stare longingly out at sea, he knew a peaceful life wouldn't be hers.

"What's a Para- para- that thing? And a Zoan? And Logi?"

"Logia fruits turn you into an element, Zoan into an animal and Paramecia is everything else." Garp eyed her speculatively. "Not sure how to activate those darned things. Never ate on myself."

"Uh… boom?" Lucy pointed at the tree outside, disappointed when nothing happened. "Whoosh? Activate? Do something? Start?"

It was at that last word that everything around her flashed the same electric blue as the Devil Fruit. Lucy blinked rapidly, trying to wash out the spots in her eyes, and stared uncomprehendingly around her. Everything looked the same… except for Gramps.

"There are glowing letters on top of your head!" Lucy squinted at them, ignoring the faint hum of surprise from her Gramps as she read them aloud. "Monkey D. Garp. Title: The Hero. Level Unknown. Observe?"

At the last word read, more letters popped up. Lucy made a face but read them aloud dutifully. Strangely it was easier to keep her concentration on the words now.

"Reputation: Loved (50/100). Vice-Admiral Monkey D. Garp is one of the strongest men in the world and a former rival of Gol D. Roger. He has deep faith in the Marines but will follow his gut, even when it goes against the law." Lucy blinked, taken aback. Even a quiet town like Foosha had heard about Gol D. Roger. "Wow, Gramps! You're really strong!"

"Bwahaha, of course I am, Lucy!" The Vice-Admiral flexed his massive muscles, a speculative gleam in his eye. "A fruit that gives you information on other people, huh? Sounds useful."

"How am I supposed to use this to fight though?" Lucy complained. "All I can do it look at people and Observe!"

As she was glaring at the countertop then, the dark-haired girl had more letters pop up there.

' _A basic countertop made of cedar and reinforced steel. Wider than average to hold Sea King meat.'_

' _Okay, so I can use it on people and things. Still not as cool as breathing fire or turning into a lion or something,_ ' Lucy sulked. It was an unexpected benefit of her fruit stilling the rapid buzzing inside of her mind, that Monkey D. Lucillia didn't immediately discard her new power. Instead she had an epiphany. ' _I can use it on the fruit and see if I have something more!'_

Garp only watched interestedly as the messy-haired child scooted over to the window and peered outside. She whispered Observe under her breath.

' _This is a surprisingly logical thinking for Lucy,'_ Garp complimented, one finger stuck in his nose.

' _The Devil Fruit Geemu Geemu no Mi. It is a Zoan-type fruit that makes the eater a Gamer-Human and is unique amongst Devil Fruits for coming with an instruction manual.'_

It took a minute or two to sound out the longer words- she was five-years-old and not particularly studious- but Lucy figured it out eventually. Instructions were those things Makino-nee followed to make a cake. Following them perfectly meant a delicious double-glazed chocolate with vanilla icing and not following them meant no yummy cake and wasted batter. So if _Lucy_ followed these instructions, she would have the chocolate cake of Devil Fruits.

Made sense to her.

"Gramps, I'm going to go to my room and learn how to use my mystery powers," Lucy announced cheerfully. "Can I take breakfast with me?"

It's not that she wanted to keep this a secret from her beloved Gramps but… well, she did. He was an adult and adults did adult things, like make her return Skippy the Frog outside. Lucy just knew that the poor amphibian was all alone and missing her now that Gramps made him leave. And it would be just her luck if she got cool powers like laser beams and then Gramps refused to let her use them.

"Alright but since you ate my biscuits, you have to eat an extra banana today." The man that the glowing letters proclaimed a hero was unmoved by her pleading expression. He put _three_ entire bananas into her hands and sent her off with a glass of warmed milk and six pieces of buttered toast. Lucy had to walk carefully to avoid spilling it all, even though she really hated that stupid banana.

The only banana this Monkey liked was the one squashed under her fist and thrown into the trash.

Lucy's room was her favorite one in the house. It had three-paned windows that looked out into the winding path to the beach and let in plenty of sunlight. There was a window seat inset there with crimson and white pillows and a trailing red-flowered vine design on either end. One wall was painted a deep crimson and had pictures of all the amazing places that Gramps travelled to. A name stenciled in white for Monkey D. Lucillia hung above the white canopy bed and matched the white curtains, dresser, desk and bookcase. Only the bottom was filled with study books, the other shelves had jars of sand, shiny rocks, pressed flowers and all of the other pretty things Lucy had found outside. The closet was overflowing with beautiful, girly clothes that she never really wore and all of the projects that Lucy didn't have the patience to finish.

There was that half-finished ink drawing from the child's calligraphy set from Wano…

The child-sized violin from Toroa that she could play maybe half a melody on…

The unfinished puzzle of birds in flight from Swallow Island…

The Make-Your-Own snow globe with a wilting stick Lucy from Holiday Island…

Th tropical themed building blocks and fake tarred teeth from Briss Kingdom…

' _I wonder if I'll finish Gramp's gift this time._ ' The child-proofed chemistry set from Torino Kingdom had looked interesting but _everything_ was interesting to her… until it just suddenly wasn't.

Not bothering to pursue that line of thinking, Lucy settled her breakfast on the desk and plopped down. Nibbling on a slice of toast, she wondered how to access this instruction manual. "Instruction?"

' _Huh, that was easy."_ The entire room had flashed electric blue again, making the little girl grumble while rubbing her eyes, but a long, ceiling-to-floor length, glowing box appeared. On the top were the words ' _Geemu Geemu no Mi'_ and below that, a picture of… herself?

Player: Monkey D. Lucillia

Title: Hyperactive, Monkey Bastard (-40% to Reputation, -20% to Academics)

Level: 5

Exp: 0/2500 to next level

Gamer Mind: Passive

Stats Closed

Aspects Closed

Skills Closed

Reputation Closed

Inventory Closed

' _Gramps said I'm not a bastard,'_ Lucy pouted. It was upsetting enough that people whispered it behind her back, she didn't need her Devil Fruit to be against her too. ' _Okay, so I'm the Player, probably cause I ate that yucky fruit. My level is five and that's… not good? Probably not good. I have to get exp or something to get to the next level. And what does Gamer Mind: Passive mean?'_

Lucy thought about it… for about twenty seconds. It was fairly impressive for her but she couldn't find the answer and decided to move on. "Stats Open?"

The box promptly did so. Useful box.

STR: 5 (+1)

VIT: 3 (+1)

DEX: 3

INT: 1

CHM: 3 (+1)

WIS: 2 (+1)

Unclaimed Points: 5

' _What does STR mean? And why is my INT so low?!'_ Luffy scowled. ' _I feel like that's an insult.'_

"I do not have a low INT," she declared aloud. "Whatever that means. And what do I do with Unclaimed Points?"

More letters scrolled across the glowing box now.

 _Would Player like to use Unclaimed Points?_

"Yes!"

 _Which Stat would the Player like to add an Unclaimed Point to?_

Since the Devil Fruit had the nerve to say she had a low INT, Lucy responded without a second thought. "Put all of them in INT!"

INT immediately shot up to six and Lucy's head felt dizzy for a short moment. When it cleared up, she looked around and everything felt… crisper somehow. It was like that sudden clarity she got when she first ate the Devil Fruit and the itch in her mind disappeared.

The dark-haired girl eyed the stats again, suddenly certain that they were abbreviations of some other thing. ' _STR would be strength. INT is intelligence. I can't believe the fruit said I had only one INT. WIS would be wisdom and CHM probably Charm. I don't know the other ones yet. VIT is…'_

Her newfound intellect proved itself a moment later when Lucy got the idea to check a dictionary. A few minutes later, and she rummaged through the pages looking for a word that would fit. ' _Vitamins, vitriform, vitelline, vitrify, vitality… Vitality, the state of being strong or active. That sounds about right. It sounds much cooler than INT too. I should have put my extra points there.'_

Still without having a higher INT, Lucy probably wouldn't have learned what it meant in the first place.

It took a little more effort to fight that DEX stood for dexterity, or how skilled she was with performing tasks with her hands. This sounded about right too. Lucy always ended up abandoning her projects because they bored her, not because she couldn't do the delicate and careful work with her hands.

Ding! The noise of a bell made her look upwards but it wasn't the wind blowing the silver chimes by her window. Instead a smaller glowing box appeared, announcing that INT had been raised one.

' _Yes! Thinking gave me a higher INT!'_

Now to find the other ones. "Aspects Open."

The glowing box complied.

Monkey Family Strength: Lvl. 1 (+1 per 5 levels STR, +1/5 VIT)

Conqueror's Haki: Lvl. 1 (Blocked, +2/5 STR, +50% Exp. Active)

Will of the D (+25 Exp. Always Active, +2/5 CHM)

Daughter of the Dragon (+100 Rep. Boost with RA, -100 Rep. Boost with FES, +1/5 WIS, +1/5 CHM)

' _Oh, that explains why some of the stats had two numbers,'_ the dark-haired girl deduced. ' _I'll get more extra numbers when I hit… uh, level 10. Then five more added to ten makes fifteen. Some of the Aspects have levels, so maybe I'll get more extra numbers if I'm in a higher level?'_

So far, the _Geemu Geemu no Mi_ wasn't giving her any laser beams but it didn't look all bad. Lucy hadn't ever heard of the Will of the D or Conqueror's Haki before but they gave her extra points and extra exp. Exp meant that she could level up faster and be strong enough to fight Gramps!

' _And Daughter of the Dragon…_ ' Lucy looked at the last Aspect, a little starry-eyed. ' _I had no idea my father was a_ dragon _!'_

Maybe… maybe one day Lucy would become a dragon too? Then she could fly and breathe fire and be even stronger than her Gramps!

Monkey D. Lucillia hadn't ever been educated on the finer aspects of bringing children into the world, beyond the knowledge that most children had a mother and a father. Since she didn't have either, it didn't seem too far-fetched to think that her father was a dragon. And dragons are supposed to kidnap princesses and hoard gold, not raise children, so it made sense that Gramps raised her instead.

The Rep. Boost stuff made sense too. Some people knew that dragons were awesome and strong and other people were princesses.

"Skills Open."

Reading/Writing/Math: Poor (10/100)/ Poor (40/100)/ Adequate (70/100)

Cooking/Cleaning/Sewing: Awful (70/100)/Poor (10/100)/Awful (0/100)

' _...Now that's just mean,'_ Lucy moped inwardly. "Reputations Open."

Foosha Town: Unfriendly (20/100)

Five Elder Stars: Unfriendly (0/100)

Revolutionary Army: Friendly (0/100)

Marineford: Neutral (0/100)

The Foosha Town didn't come as a surprise to her, even if it did make the slender girl wilt a little. Neither did Marineford, since Gramps worked in the Marines and probably at least one person knew her there. It was the second and third that puzzled her, until she looked back at Aspects.

' _The Revolutionary Army must be a dragon fan club,_ ' the dark-haired girl concluded, nodding her head in satisfaction. ' _And the Elder Stars are a group of princesses.'_

Finally, last but not least… "Inventory Open."

A glowing box appeared next to her, pale blue and filled with white lines bisecting it vertically and horizontally into boxes. The one at the bottom right had a beli sign on it with the number zero.

 _The Inventory is empty._

Lucy poked the box. Her finger went through, feeling cold and uncomfortable, and she jerked it back out. ' _What the heck?'_

Inventory was another word for stuff right? Makino-nee had to 'catalogue inventory' sometimes, and that just meant counting up all of the stuff she had in the bar. Lucy had a piece of toast. Maybe she could add that to the inventory?

Slowly and carefully, the dark-haired girl slid the bread into an empty box. It disappeared from her hand and a little drawing, brown and gold and buttery and delicious, appeared. Mouth-watering, she reached for it and came away shocked when her hand reappeared… with a piece of toast.

' _A backpack… that no one else can see…'_

There was only one thing that could be done here. Monkey D. Lucillia gleefully grabbed her untouched bananas and threw them into the inventory. She could throw them away later when Gramps wasn't around to catch her banana peels.

' _The tyranny of the banana is over! The Geemu Geemu no Mi is an awesome Devil Fruit!'_

Ding! WIS +1.

x

Player: Monkey D. Lucillia

Title: Hyperactive, Monkey Bastard (-40% to Reputation, -20% to Academics)

Level: 5

Exp: 0/2500

Gamer Mind: Passive

HP: 100/100

WP: 75/75

STR: 5 (+1)

VIT: 3 (+1)

DEX: 3

INT: 7

CHM: 3 (+1)

WIS: 3 (+1)

Aspects:

Monkey Family Strength: Lvl. 1 (+1/5 STR, +1/5 VIT)

Conqueror's Haki: Lvl. 1 (Blocked, +2/5 STR, +50% Exp. Active)

Will of the D: (+25% Exp Always Active, +2/5 CHM)

Daughter of the Dragon (+100 Rep. Boost with RA, -100 Rep. Boost with FES, +1/5 WIS, +1/5 CHM)

Skills:

Reading/Writing/Math: Poor (10/100)/ Poor (40/100)/ Adequate (70/100)

Cooking/Cleaning/Sewing: Awful (70/100)/Poor (10/100)/Awful (0/100)

Reputation:

Five Elder Stars: Unfriendly (0/100)

Revolutionary Army: Friendly (0/100)

Foosha Town: Unfriendly (20/100)

Marineford: Neutral (0/100)

Beli: $0

x

 _A few things to be clarified. This is my first One Piece fic and my first Gamer fic, so there may be some technical difficulties to run through in this story. I'll try and focus on plot instead of the Game itself but the first three or four chapters will be the pre-Ace, Lucy learns about her Gamer abilities Arc. I've also decided that the pairing will be Lucy and Ace but that may be a while off. There will be three pre-canon arcs, followed by my glossing over the Strawhats time in East Blue, since I really want to reach the Grand Line. I haven't decided yet if I'll go for an expanded crew but it's open to debate._

 _For the Game, I've set Health to VIT*Lvl*5 and WP to WIS*Lvl*5. WP stands for Will Power and decides how much Haki Lucillia can use. Conqueror's Haki will be a drain on WP when first used but that can be mitigated somewhat through training. Exp. points for levels is decided by Lvl squared*100. Since it's an exponential growth equation, each level will become progressively harder than the last by a certain degree. She gets five Unclaimed Points every time she passes a multiple of 5, so when she reaches Level 10, she'll get five more points. Finally, there are brackets for reputation and skills._

 _For Reputation: Hostile - Unfriendly - Neutral - Friendly - Loved - Exalted_

 _For Skills: Awful - Poor - Adequate - Good - Accomplished - Exceptional_

 _Last but not least, I've decided on a simple conversion rate of 100 B for $1. This lets me keep to standard American East Coast prices for most goods, with adjustments considering the local geography and economy, and the beli currency. An example would be a gallon of milk costing 400B._


	2. Meeting the Mayor

Chapter Two

"Observe!" Monkey D. Lucillia shouted excitedly, as a green-haired woman stood at the door. Makino was balancing a heavy-looking cast-iron pot on her hands, as Lucy read the lettering above her head.

Name: Satoru Makino

Level: 18

'Reputation: Friendly (60/100)

Makino is the local barkeep of Partys Bar. She is cheerful and optimistic and hopes to have a family of her own one day.'

"Makino-nee is only… thirteen levels higher than me!" Lucy quickly did the sums on the little notebook in her hand and stepped aside to the let her through. "What did you make for lunch today, neechan?"

The pretty barkeep took the comment in stride, familiar with the strange observations that her young ward would make every now and then. "I thought we could have fresh sushi rolls today. Would you like to help me, Lucy?"

Expecting a negative, as the young girl often dedicated her time to playing outside unless otherwise directed, Makino was pleasantly surprised to have her eagerly nod. For Lucy, this looked like a great opportunity to increase her exp bar and skill set. Earlier in the day, she had won 125 Exp Points and +10 Cleaning Skill when Gramps asked her to tidy up her room. She had high hopes for this too, when a Quest Alert popped up in front of her.

Quest: Make ten sushi rolls for Makino!

Reward: 50 Exp. for every successful roll. +20 Cooking Skill

Failure: -5 Rep with Makino, Messy sushi rolls

Would you like to accept?

Lucy quickly worked out the numbers on the page. That would mean… 625 Exp Points with the Will of D bonus!

"Yes!" Lucy shouted triumphantly to the world. "I will make ten perfect sushi rolls!"

"That's nice, Lucy, but we have to move inside the kitchen before you can do that!"

"Makino-nee, I ate a Devil Fruit today," Lucy began, as they set out the sheets of yaki nori on their respective bamboo mats. "It turned me into a Gamer-Human."

"That's nice, Lucy." Makino took out crisp vegetables and fresh tuna and began to chop them up, "What does that mean exactly?"

"It gives me special powers, like an Inventory to hide the bananas Gramps tries to make me eat," Lucy's tone was downright smug. "And it tells me stuff about people too!"

"And what does it tell you about me?"

"That you're cheerful, optimistic and want to have a family someday," Lucy reported, carefully spreading the sticky, short grain rice on the seaweed. The vinegar on it made it glisten wetly.

Ding! +5 Rep with Satoru Makino

Lucy eyed the glowing box weirdly. "Neechan, do you like me more now?"

"Ah, why do you say that, Lucy?" A smiling Makino asked, looking up from where her finger was pressing a line into the rice.

"My reputation with you went up by five points." Lucy picked two long slices of carrots and a few cucumber bits and pressed them around the tuna. "Why?"

"I think it may be because you said such a kind thing about me?"

Lucy thought it over for a second. "That's silly. Neechan shouldn't like me for telling the truth."

Ding! +5 Rep with Satoru Makino

"Jeesh! Neechan, I'm trying to work," Lucy complained, when the older woman pulled her into a sudden hug. The movement jostled the bamboo mat and a lot of the rice fell out. "Neechan!"

"Sorry, Lucy!" Makino hid her smile as the girl hurried to fix the ruined roll. There was an alert box seen by only one person that told her the roll was beyond fixing and wouldn't count. Lucy picked it up and shoved it into her mouth either way- no sense in wasting good food- and then tried to make another one.

"Stay in place, you stupid tuna!"

"Why does the rice keep sticking to the bamboo mat?"

"Buddha help me, I will _eat_ you, carrot!"

It took time… and effort… and an entire second package of nori sheets but the sushi rolls were finally done. Lucy received her improved skill with pleasure and then went on to wash her hands. Cooking wasn't all that bad. Even if she wasn't very good at it, Makino-nee let her eat all the ruined rolls!

And there had been many ruined rolls. So many that Lucy only ate 32 sushi pieces for lunch instead of her usual roughly 70 or so. Gramps had been kind enough to polish off the rest.

"What do you plan to do today, Lucy?"

Her lessons were on hold whenever Gramps visited, as otherwise three hours of the morning and two of the afternoon were dedicated to studying. This would be his last day of shore leave and her last day of respite, so even with her low academic skills, Lucy refused to study.

"I'm going to go practice my Observe skill." Makino nodded as if her words made sense, though Lucy was starting to get the feeling that _maybe_ Makino didn't think she had Devil Fruit powers. _Maybe_.

That was fine. Makino-nee could learn how awesome she was later, like when Lucy activated her dragon powers.

She took a moment to put her hands together and look up piously to the yellow-painted ceiling. ' _Dear Buddha, please let me inherit badass dragon powers from my dad. Thanks.'_

After that, Lucy all but skipped out the door, ready to find more quests. She quietly whispered Observe under her breath whenever she passed someone. There were some odd looks sent to the little girl in the light red sundress and matching headband that appeared to be talking to thin air but Lucy ignored them. It didn't feel nice to be looked at that way- the pitiful bastard with the mental problems- but they weren't the ones with the cool, invisible, banana-eating mystery backpack.

Name: Yoshida Takeshi

Level: 17

Name: Kimura Leiko

Level: 13

Name: Fujita Juro

Level: 9

And so on. As the names passed by, she learned a few important details. First, Observe mostly told her the person's job and sometimes one or two details about their personality. Second, the people of Foosha almost universally disliked her. Third, none of the levels were unknown to her, except for Gramps. Lucy didn't know why. Maybe he was just that strong? Maybe his Marine coat had mystery Devil Fruit shields? No matter the reason, she didn't know how much stronger than her he was. Finally, older people had bigger numbers than younger ones. That made sense. Lucy got to bigger levels by having more exp and old people must have had a lot of experience!

' _Who do I know that's reeeaalllyy old?'_ Lucy needed someone experienced. Someone wise. Someone who was going to die any day now. "Mayor Woop Slap!"

His name didn't exactly pop into her head. She simply saw his bright yellow shirt, lampshade hat and bamboo cane and came to the realization. Lucy slapped her fist against her hand, mentally chiding herself for not having thought of him earlier, and then ran over to the wary man.

"Of course! You probably even have your coffin picked out by now!" The dark-haired girl greeted enthusiastically. "I need your help, Mayor!"

"YEOW!" A second later, she recoiled as the old man used his cane to thwack her. "Mayor, why?!"

"I don't know what you meant but I know it was an insult," Woop Slap railed, hitting her again. "Now what did you need my help with, Lucillia?"

She stuck her tongue out at him and then hopped back before he could hit her again. Mayor Woop Slap was the only person to call her by her full name, except for Gramps when Lucy was in trouble. The Gamer-Human almost reconsidered asking him for help.

"Observe," Lucy said instead. The glowing box popped up again.

Name: Woop Slap

Level: 24

Reputation: Neutral (40/100)

The Mayor of Foosha Village, Woop Slap is a respected and law-abiding elder. He is deeply distrustful of lawbreakers and is wary of Lucy for being the Daughter of the Dragon. Despite this, he cares for all the children in his village and has built a soft spot for her over the years.

' _I never knew the Mayor was a secret princess…'_ Lucy had never heard of a boy being a princess. But she wasn't one to judge; she liked doing boy things sometimes too. "Aw, Mayor, I didn't know you had a soft spot for me!"

She had been dodging his cane for the last minute or so, since it took some time for Lucy to read and the Mayor had been trying to hit her in that time. He probably thought she was acting out or playing a joke on him or something. For some reason, _everyone_ thought Lucy was a troublemaker.

"I don't have a soft spot for you," the man blustered. "Don't speak such nonsense here!"

"Na-na-na~ The Mayor can't fool me," Lucy grinned brightly. "I can see you blushing!"

"Don't be such a disrespectful little brat!" He hit her with a cane again. "Now tell me what it is you need help with and then go on your way!"

"Ah, Mayor Woop Slap, I need your wisdom to gain experience points!" Ignoring his boggled look, Lucy set about explaining her problem. "I'm only a level five Gamer now but I want to become stronger and gain more skills. And beat Gramps! You're old and wrinkly and have the highest level that I've seen so far. Please help me become the very best!"

There were a few minutes where Mayor Woop Slap simply squinted at her, trying to figure out exactly what Garp's lovable oddball of a granddaughter had to say. In the end, his eyes widened with a newfound respect and he looked at her with more approval in his expression than ever before.

"You… want to improve yourself?"

Lucy's head nodded eagerly like one of those strange bobble toys Gramps had brought her once.

"And you came to me for help because you think I'm wise?"

Lucy nodded again. Higher levels meant more unclaimed points and since the Mayor didn't look like he had a lot of vitality, strength, charm or dexterity, it must have all been put into the other two stats! INT and WIS were practically the same thing and he must have a lot of them!

"I admit that I did not expect this from you, Lucillia." The Mayor eyed her curiously again and then pressed. "Are you certain of this? Do you truly want to improve yourself or will this be a passing fascination for you?"

"I'm serious about this, Mayor," Lucy insisted. Her eyes burned with determination. It was a look Woop Slap had seen on Garp and Dragon before this but far less intimidating on a five-year-old girl.

"Why do you want to improve yourself?"

In truth, Lucy wanted to do so to become a dragon. She was certain the transformation would be unlocked when she reached a high enough level. The dark-haired girl was determined to do so, since the life of a dragon sounded amazing. She could fly and breathe fire and hoard gold and have adventures. Kidnapping princesses didn't sound that hard either. She had found one already and Lucy could probably take the Mayor down.

Telling a princess that she wanted to be a dragon didn't sound like a good idea though.

"I guess I just realized how pathetic I am?" Lucy's tone made it sound like a question. Her newfound intellect hurriedly filled in more details. "I'm not very good at any of that book stuff and I can't cook or clean or sew, or any of those other things that Makino-nee is good at. I tried to make sushi rolls today but half of them broke and it took a long time to make the ten rolls that Makino-nee wanted."

Woop Slap's Monkey detector started ringing like crazy but even then, he couldn't help the sympathy that welled in his heart. He truly was a sucker for a good sob story. This one wasn't all that tragic but he'd take anything if it meant Lucy wouldn't grow up to crash down walls like Garp. The village budget simply wasn't made to handle two of them.

"I'll accept this answer!" Woop Slap held his cane up to the sky, "I will be the one to bring some sense back into the Monkey family line!"

"Great," Lucy sweat dropped. "Can you do somewhere more private? People are giving us weird looks again and my reputation's not the best there is."

"My wise teachings will correct all of that," Woop Slap assured her. "Now what would be a good place to make history…?"

The dark-eyed child privately wondered why the Mayor was so excited about this. All she did was ask him for some tips to level up. Regardless the elderly man wasn't satisfied until the two were sitting on his front porch, covered by the shade of his veranda, with ice-cold lemonades in their hands. This, Woop Slap explained, set the atmosphere for their most serious discussion on life advice.

"Atmosphere is very important," the Mayor instructed firmly, as she sipped on her swirly straw. "It lends an air of gravitas- which means 'dignity', Lucillia, a very serious thing- to the proceedings. Little acts of hospitality, like bringing your guests under the shade and offering them a drink, shows people that you're interested in their comfort. That you're interested in _them._ "

"And people want to think that you're interested in them?"

"People want to _know_ ," Woop Slap corrected. "All people are interesting in their own ways, Lucillia. It's easier to see in some people than others- your grandfather is certainly a character- but everyone is important. And everyone wants to feel like they're important and valued. If you can make people feel like that, than they'll come to value you too."

"And you want people to value you," Lucy surmised. "Then they'll be your friends?"

"Yes, and having friends is very important in this world. Do you know why?"

Lucy considered that question for a moment. She didn't have many friends or people that cared about her at all really. There was Gramps and Makino-nee, and she loved them both very much, but she didn't get to see the former all that often. The dark-eyed girl never liked seeing Gramps sail away…

"So you're not alone," Lucy said softly. "It's the worst feeling in the world. No one should ever have to be alone."

Ding! +1 WIS

Ding! +10 Rep with Woop Slap

"It's not where I was going with this but yes, I do think you're correct." The Mayor smiled at her. "I was referring to the fact that all of the grandest accomplishments in life are done by people working together. No one can do great things alone, Lucillia, remember that. And no leader can persuade- that means 'convince'- other people to work with them, unless they treat those people with respect."

"Is that why you've been Mayor for so long?" Lucy cocked her head to the side. "Everyone likes you because you take the time to help them, right? Just as you're helping me now."

Ding! +5 Rep with Woop Slap

"Shishishi," Lucy cackled, as the color in the man's cheeks deepened. "You're blushing again, Mayor!"

"Stop teasing me! Shame on you, Monkey D. Lucillia! Shame!"

There were another few minutes of Mayor Woop Slap trying halfheartedly to thwack the cackling little girl with his bamboo cane, given up when she nearly spilled her lemonade over her lap. As the two settled back into some semblance of order, the Mayor tried to return to the concern from earlier.

"Another quality that draws people to a leader is competence. They want to know that the man- or woman- they follow, is capable and hard working. What kind of skills do you have, Lucillia?"

"Eh… I can eat an entire cow in one sitting," Lucy offered. "And play half a lullaby on the violin?"

The Mayor slapped his hand against his forehead. "Somehow this does not surprise me in the slightest."

"Hey!" Now she felt a bit offended. "I'm only five-years-old! I have plenty of time to learn all of those boring, grown up skills."

"Yes, but it never hurts to start early," Woop Slap refuted. "I know that you don't lack the energy for it. Nor the ambition, nor the talent."

Lucy was most certainly not blushing as the elderly man reached over and patted her head.

"Let's start with the violin. It's a nice, ladylike skill for a young girl to master."

Woop Slap paused and waited for her to refuse, as Lucy was well-known for her tomboyish ways. He was pleasantly surprised when she did not, though likely would have been less so, at her reasoning.

' _Princesses like violin music and dragons like princesses. So a dragon that knows how to play the violin would be able to lure a princess into its cave…'_

Monkey D. Lucillia was nothing if not dedicated to becoming a successful dragon.

"You're not going to protest learning the violin?" Woop Slap asked suspiciously.

"I bow to your greater wisdom in this matter," Lucy replied officiously.

Ding! +5 Rep with Woop Slap

"I'll arrange a teacher for you then. No doubt Garp can afford the woman, even if she'll double her charge to travel all the way from Goa Kingdom."

The dark-haired girl nodded in agreement. In a world centered around the sea, where the sole military arm of the World Government was its Marine force, her Gramps made an indecently large salary. It was only bolstered by the practice of adding bonuses for any name brand pirates captured. Gramps and his crew were single-handedly responsible for a _lot_ of pirate captures.

"There are also valuable life skills to be learnt, like cooking and cleaning," Woop Slap thwacked her over the knuckles before she could protest. "I'm not saying this because you're a girl. Not everyone is settled to a married life and there are plenty of men, such as myself, that can feed ourselves. It's indecent to expect Makino take care of you for your entire life."

Lucy pouted but nodded in understanding. Cooking wasn't all that bad. Makino-nee taught her kindly and allowed her to eat all of the extra food.

"Even if you don't end up with a husband or children, you'll be glad to have this essential life skill," Woop Slap added. He looked briefly wistful. "As pleasant as it is to think of the end of a line of madness, I wouldn't place any bets on it. There's always at least one idiot out there that's willing to marry a Monkey."

Leagues away and utterly unaware of the insult directed to him, Portgas D. Ace abruptly sneezed. The sound startled the deer he was hunting and the wild boy swore as he chased after the beast.

Lucy made a face. Marriage meant boys and boys meant silly little people that cried when you ran faster or hit harder than them. Yuck.

"I want to be strong too," Lucy reminded him, because it felt like the Mayor was gearing up for a long lecture on how to be a proper little girl.

"I'm not sure how but hard work will help you there, as it does in all other skills," Woop Slap said diplomatically, inwardly rolling his eyes. "Ask Garp."

' _I forgot that the Mayor hasn't put any of his points into STR.'_ Lucy eyed those soft arm muscles with perplexion. ' _I'll have to find out how to be strong myself then. Mayor Woop Slap is an old princess.'_

Woop Slap felt the sudden urge to hit the dark-eyed girl with his cane. So he did.

"You can't focus on strength to the detriment of your mind," he hurriedly added. "Intelligence is one of the most important traits for a leader to have!"

"What makes you so certain that I'll be a leader, Mayor?"

"I've known three generations of Monkeys so far, Lucillia. I'll eat my hat if you're not leading a ragtag band of misfits into some trouble one day… but by the Buddha, you will do so with dignity! And grace! And as a productive, law-abiding citizen!"

Lucy blinked at him innocently. "How can I be a productive, law-abiding citizen?"

Woop Slap blinked back, unsure. "Ah, well you can study hard and be a helpful, polite person."

"Okay!" The girl hopped up, smoothing out her dusky-toned dress. "Mayor, you're an old man! Do you need any help with anythi- YEOW!"

"Stop calling me old, Lucillia!" Woop Slap drew his cane back. "And yes, if you would be so kind to offer, I do need some more kindling for my wood stove. Could you bring me a few armfuls from the woods?"

Lucy's eyes brightened when a glowing box popped up. Next to it was a smaller box set at 30 minutes.

Quest: Bring four bundles of wood in for Woop Slap in 30 minutes!

Reward: 50 Exp. for every successful bundle. +10 Rep with Woop Slap, +10 Rep with Foosha Village

Bonus: 100 Exp for every extra bundle of wood, ?

Failure: -20 Rep with Foosha Village, Woop Slap is cold tomorrow morning

Would you like to accept?

' _The last quest didn't have a timer,_ ' Lucy noted, even as her eyes settled unerringly on the prize.

She promptly shouted an acceptance, turned on her heel and then ran towards the woods. The trunks at the edge, where the loggers worked undisturbed by wild animals, were surrounded by fallen branches ideal for kindling. The dark-haired girl found a bunch of them quickly and set about putting them into a pile and rushing back to the Mayor's house. Once, twice, a third, a fourth and a fifth time she did this before the timer ran out. Unknown to her were the surprised glances of the loggers as they watched Monkey D. Lucillia gather wood for the well-loved mayor of the village.

Lucy fell face-first into the grass, groaning as her muscles caught up with all of the running. She was so exhausted that she almost didn't hear the Devil Fruit chime as it awarded her 375 exp points. She definitely heard Mayor Woop Slap chuckle though, as he pulled her to her feet.

"Ooowww," Lucy whined, as her arms were mercilessly tugged up. "Lemonade?"

"Yes, it's for you," the Mayor answered, amused. "Thank you for helping me, Lucillia. This is for you."

"500 Beli?" She blinked down at the sage-colored note in surprise. This hadn't been on the Quest page. No, looking over to the glowing box, the question mark had disappeared. Still… "You don't have to pay me, Mayor."

The man waved it off. "It's for a job well done. In fact, my back's getting old and I find that it's harder to gather firewood for myself. How would you like to do it for me, biweekly, with the same pay?"

"Sure, why not?" Lucy smiled up at him. "Thanks for all of your help today."

"It's a pleasure to guide the leaders of tomorrow," Woop Slap smiled. "And one more thing, Lucillia. A true leader doesn't crash through walls when the unlocked door _isn't even two footsteps away_."

The dark-haired girl sweat dropped. "Right," she chuckled nervously. "I'll keep that in mind."

x

Player: Monkey D. Lucillia

Title: Hyperactive, Monkey Bastard (-40% to Reputation, -20% to Academics)

Level: 5

Exp: 1125/2500

Gamer Mind: Passive

HP: 100/100

WP: 100/100

STR: 5 (+1)

VIT: 3 (+1)

DEX: 3

INT: 7

CHM: 3 (+1)

WIS: 4 (+1)

Aspects:

Monkey Family Strength: Lvl. 1 (+1/5 STR, +1/5 VIT)

Conqueror's Haki: Lvl. 1 (Blocked, +5/5 STR, +50% Exp. Active)

Will of the D: (+25% Exp Always Active, +2/5 CHM)

Daughter of the Dragon (+100 Rep. Boost with RA, -100 Rep. Boost with FES, +1/5 WIS, +1/5 CHM)

Skills:

Reading/Writing/Math: Poor (10/100)/ Poor (40/100)/ Adequate (70/100)

Cooking/Cleaning/Sewing: Awful (70/100)/Poor (20/100)/Awful (0/100)

Reputation:

Five Elder Stars: Unfriendly (0/100)

Revolutionary Army: Friendly (0/100)

Foosha Town: Unfriendly (30/100)

Marineford: Neutral (0/100)

Money: 500 B

x

 _Professor was absent from classes today! Had a productive two hours. :)_


	3. The First Dungeon

Chapter Three

Lucy threw her arms around her grandfather's neck, the scrawny, graceless limbs barely closing over corded muscle, as she wished, for the upteenth time in her short life, for enough strength to _make him stay._

"You need to let go now, Lucy." The powerful fists that had been the terror of countless pirates were opened now to hug her back. "My men will be leaving soon."

"Don't care." She buried her face in his coat, tickled a little by his short beard and breathing in the crisp minty scent of his aftershave. "Go t'morrow."

"You'll say that the next day too." Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp gently peeled the human barnacle off of his chest, revealing wide, teary black eyes and a blotchy pink face, that had him sigh. Lucy squirmed in silent protest as she was placed back on the ground. Folding her arms together, she glared up at him. Even when he knelt, her Gramps managed to tower over her relatively tiny form.

"You don't _have_ to go," the dark-haired girl muttered petulantly.

"If I don't go, than who will?" Garp asked reasonably. He reached out to ruffle her short locks, easily catching her even when she tried to duck under his grasp, and mussing them up even further.

Lucy considered the question in all seriousness. Her Gramps was strong. She didn't know how strong, since her Devil Fruit still wouldn't tell her what his level was, but definitely up there with the Pirate King. She didn't know anyone else who was that strong. The highest level she had seen so far was 24.

It wasn't ideal but she still dubiously offered. "We can send Mayor Woop Slap?"

That broke the solemnity of the moment, at least for a heartbeat when Gramps merely stared at her in utter disbelief and then promptly broke into tear-triggering laughter.

"BWAHAHAHAHA!" The old man practically roared, his chest reverberating with the strength and force of his amusement, as his granddaughter pouted. "That's a good one, Lucy!"

More invested in the idea now that it had been mocked, Lucy kicked the old man's shin. It was about as satisfying- and about as effective- as kicking a boulder. "Baka Gramps! I bet the Mayor is smarter than you are!"

"Are you calling me stupid, brat?"

"So what if I am?" Lucy kicked him again. "Just leave already! I won't miss you at all!"

The mountain of a man stopped laughing and stood there with a nostalgic smile on his face as the petite girl added fists to her pummeling. Then he leaned down and scooped her back up. Absently dodging a poorly aimed yet still lucky fist aimed at his head, Garp lifted her up until two matching sets of dark eyes were staring at each other.

The dark-haired girl rubbed her eyes. "I don't care if you leave. I'm not gonna… miss you… at all…"

"I'll come back." She had heard those words four times before and shook her head to keep from listening to them now. "I always do, don't I?"

' _You said you were going to the New World this time_. _Those missions take at least a year to finish.'_

Her Gramps was still talking but she ignored him. She had heard it all before. "...and when I do, you'll be even stronger right?"

"Strongest in the world," Lucy muttered miserably. Her reward was a beaming, if teary, grin that dwindled down to a small, affectionate smile. The rest of the goodbye went as all of them had. She tried to choke him into staying multiple times, he made grand promises of gifts that were probably illegal for a child to have, they both teared up and eventually, Bogard had to drag them apart.

"Lucillia-hime." The calm and cool man said, nodding towards her. "I'll be taking the Captain then."

"Hi, Bogard." She waved half-heartedly at the fedora-wearing man. While she liked him personally, his formal nature and the fact that she only saw him when Gramps had to leave for a mission, kept them from being close. Hmm, he would be a strong fighter too, wouldn't he? "Observe."

 _Name: Bogard_

 _Level: Unknown_

' _Reputation: Friendly (10/100)_

 _Calm and collected, Bogard is the loyal right-hand man of Vice-Admiral Monkey D. Garp. He speaks only when needed and works tirelessly for the pursuit of Justice.'_

' _Is it the Marine coat?'_ There had only been two people that Lucillia hadn't been able to Observe the levels of yet, and both of them wore the Marine coat. She wanted to get her hands on one if they had special secret powers. "Ne, Gramps? When you come back, can you bring me a Marine coat?"

The starry-eyed look on the old man's face instantly made her wary as he promised to do so. Then it was just one more hug before Garp leapt out to his ship leagues from shore. The Lord of the Coast rose up to snap at him but with a single punch, her Gramps tossed the Sea King back into the ocean with a massive splash. The afternoon sunlight glinted off his white and blue coat, flying majestically from his back as he landed on the deck of the SS Bowser. It would have been undeniably awesome if she wasn't still mad at him for leaving.

From so far away, Garp looked like a pocky stick as he waved at her. "BYE LUCY! I LOVE YOU!"

The dark-haired girl waved back as hard as she could, until her arms felt like they would drop off. "LOVE YOU TOO, OLD MAN! COME HOME SOON!"

"BOTH OF YOU, STOP DISTURBING THE PEACE OF THIS VILLAGE!" Mayor Woop Slap's thundering rebuke only brought a grin to her face, as the warship sailed off to the distance. She turned away when even her straining eyes couldn't find a speck of grey in the horizon and made her way to the Mayor's house. She still had a daily quest to finish after all.

A half hour of running back and forth awarded her 375 exp points, 500 Beli and another 10 Rep with Foosha Town, though her title as 'Hyperactive Monkey Bastard' meant she only got 6 Rep. The main difference this time around was that the _Geemu Geemu no Mi_ also awarded her one VIT point. Her intellect noted that this had the unexpected bonus of increasing her HP bar to 125, so there must be a connection between them.

' _The HP bar probably stands for Health. But why did it only show up now?'_ The bar briefly glowed after she gained her VIT point, with the numbers scaling rapidly up from 100 to 125. If it showed how long she could stay in a fight, than it would be a very useful thing to have. ' _But how can I make it show up all the time?'_

Her other question, on what would happen if that bar fell to zero, was shied away from. Lucy simply decided that she would never let that happen.

"Excellent job, Lucillia," the Mayor said approvingly. His woodbox was looking nice and full. "Here, have some more lemonade. Now what do you intend to do today?"

Lucy shrugged. "Makino-nee says I don't have lessons today. Maybe I'll just walk around the village?"

"Not the most productive use of your time but I suppose you aren't in the mood for work today." Woop Slap looked at her sympathetically and then nodded towards his candy jar. "Mint?"

She grinned at him cheekily and took two just to hear him break out into a lecture on gift etiquette. Lucy danced around his cane, not quite stupid enough to ask whether hitting people with a stick counted as proper manners, and then ran out the door. It was a bright sunny day with fluffy white clouds and air still damp from recent rain and Lucillia jumped straight into four muddles along the way. She wanted to run _somewhere_ and hit _something_ and deal with this awful hurricane of emotions inside her that was mostly sad but also really angry.

' _Baka Gramps_ ,' Lucy thought scathingly. ' _Why aren't you ever around?_ '

An improved intellect aside, there were a few things that could reliably be counted on when it came to Monkey D. Lucillia. The first was that she was almost always hungry. The second was that she had unusually keen senses. The third was that her extraordinary strength and inability to discern likely consequences had her often disregard Makino's warnings. In other words, Lucy smelled tangerines within the forest, her stomach growled and she was off like a shot.

' _Food, food, food,'_ the dark-haired girl cheered inwardly, bouncing carelessly into the gloomy recesses of the trees. Her nose led her like the most unerring of missiles to a grove of three trees almost a quarter mile within the forest. They were heavily laden with the delicious orange fruit but also far too high for Lucy to reach them. " _Food?"_

Her voice was so soft and plaintive then that it would have wrung sympathy from Akainu himself.

' _Why are you up so high, Food?'_ She looked longingly up at the branches. They were round, plump, juicy… and now, her mouth was filling up with drool. "Observe?"

' _A grove of orange trees that mark the entrance to the First Dungeon.'_

"Huh?" Momentarily substituting confusion for hunger, she blinked luminous ink-toned eyes. "What does _that_ mean?"

The glowing blue box of the _Geemu Geemu no Mi_ appeared again. This time words scrolled across in dark grey instead of the white held by her stats or inventory. Speaking of her inventory, she had stored some food in there already, hadn't she? Only it was bananas and Lucy hadn't reached that level of desperation… yet.

' _The Dungeon is a unique area developed to train one's combat abilities without inflicting damage to one's immediate surroundings. The Player defeats monsters, gathers loot and gains great prizes for their valor and heroism.'_

Not all of those words made sense to her but one was easy enough. "What kind of prizes?"

There was a brief pause and then another word scrolled by. ' _Food.'_

Lucy perked up. "Sounds good to me! How do I enter a Dungeon?"

A smaller blue box popped up.

 _Would Player like to enter the First Dungeon?_

"Yes!"

One moment Monkey D. Lucillia was standing there in the forest's shade, staring hungrily up at the oranges, while, unknowing to her, prowling beasts were staring hungrily at her. The next moment, she was in an empty field with a vast, open sky and straw-colored grass as far as the eye could see. Her HP bar had shown up, proudly announcing to all and sundry that she had full health now. All of the trees from earlier had disappeared… along with the oranges.

Lucy couldn't hold back her gasp of dismay. How could she eat something that wasn't there?! ' _I've been betrayed!'_

How could the _Geemu Geemu no Mi_ do this to her? She _trusted_ her Devil Fruit.

First, Gramps had to leave and now this? It was no wonder that Lucy felt a shot of savage glee when a head-sized orange… thing popped up and she reflexively kicked it far away from her.

' _By the Buddha, what_ is _that?'_ She almost didn't notice the familiar bell chime announcing that she'd won 10 exp points. The dark-haired girl tiptoed over to where she'd kicked the thing, carefully eyeing the ground for more surprises, and found that it was gone. In its place was a crisp 100 Beli note.

' _The Fruit mentioned prizes,_ ' Lucy's eyes glinted with understanding. ' _Including food.'_

The dark-haired girl _did_ want to fight with something today. And kicking that thing _had_ been a lot more effective than kicking Gramps had been.

' _This would even be good training.'_ She picked up the Beli note and watched it dissolve into green mist in her hand. "Inventory Open."

In clear white letters, the Inventory noted that she had 1100 B.

Money wasn't as good as food but she could work with this. The dark-haired girl picked a direction on random- they all seemed to lead to an endless horizon anyway- and walked forward. When the next orange thing popped up, she moved back to Observe it.

' _Blood Tangerine. Brought to life by an experiment gone wrong, they wander the grasslands in search of the only substance that can bring them any peace… human blood.'_

"...Creepy," Lucy decided eventually. It was a head-sized orange with two little arms and two little legs, narrowed black eyes and sharp and pointy teeth bared into a snarl. It would have been cute if Lucy wasn't of the opinion that food was meant to be food and not fight its purpose of being eaten.

That feeling was only compounded when the creepy thing jumped up and dug it's sharp teeth into the pale flesh of her arm. "OW!"

"GET OFF, GET OFF, GET OFF OF MEEEE." The dark-haired girl's violent shaking of her arm threw the creature off, being swiftly followed by a vindictive kick that made it pop into orange smoke. The smoke wafted away to reveal another 100 B note, whose pleasure was counteracted by a _ding_ noting that she had lost 5 HP.

Monkey D. Lucillia narrowed her eyes. It was an expression that, on the faces of her father and grandfather, instilled more terror in the world than any army ever could. It was somewhat less effective on a petite girl in a pink sundress with a matching lace headband. The tone was a perfect match though. "You. Are. Going. _Down_."

Lucy threw her shoulders back and marched grimly into the grass. The next Blood Tangerine turned to smoke and left her with another 100 B. The one afterward had a far greater prize, a perfectly ripe orange. It too turned into smoke when she reached for it but a quick check of inventory proved that it was right next to the icon of the dreaded banana.

Five, six, seven… She was almost having fun with this. No, she _was_ having fun with this. She got to run around and kick at things without being scolded for acting so wild or risking hurting any of the other village children with her strength. Defeating the small orange thingies wasn't particularly hard to do, even if they got a few bites in when three or four attacked her at once. Her health bar had dropped to 85 but she still felt fine. Lucy had even amassed 1500 B and 22 oranges when the sky rippled and a darker shade of blue took place of its former teal color.

' _Bigger orange… bigger prize?'_ Lucy imagined a tangerine big enough that she would need more than one bite to finish it and licked her lips in anticipation. This one was the size of a small badger and when she used Observe, had the same description as its smaller counterpart.

' _The game didn't mention that it could jump like this!'_ The dark-haired girl dropped to the floor, dirt staining her elbows as the thing practically propelled to the air and over her. She rolled around, getting even more dirty but being able to flash her legs up to kick the Blood Tangerine away. As she scrambled to her feet, Lucy realized that it hadn't yet disappeared.

' _And it has a health bar too.'_ The bar was a third of the way empty, probably from her kick. When the orange came at her, she sidestepped it and kicked again. A third time and it turned to billowing smoke, leaving a _500_ Beli note behind and 15 exp points. ' _I have to be more careful with this one.'_

It was easier said than done when two popped up at her next. Lucy had found that walking spreaded out the attacks. Staying in one place meant multiple oranges would attack you and while the dark-haired girl was confident in her own strength, she wasn't reckless enough to invite so many enemies. She danced around the Blood Tangerines, stumbling once and wishing she had put a point or two into DEX, before kicking them into submission. Another 500 B note and… a branch?

"Observe."

' _A hardened branch useful for smacking away one's enemies. Not very resilient.'_

"Well, it's no badass sword or awesome laser but I guess it'll have to do." Lucy picked up the branch and tested it between her hands. Not that she had any expertise on the matter but it felt okay. A grin spreading across her face, she crooned out. "Now, now, little oranges, _where are you_?"

A second later, she paused, shook her head and decided to _never_ do that again. Some unidentifiable sixth sense informed her that such creepiness was meant for strange men in flashy sunglasses and feather boas alone.

The next Blood Tangerine that popped up took 20 HP points with one hit of the branch. Since the Blood Tangerines had 50 HP apiece, it took only two blows to finish it. Lucy did the same for the next eight to approach her, gaining another 4000 B and a wrapped orange-icing cake.

Lucy beamed at the crinkly plastic wrap. A Devil Fruit that gave her sweets? Truly, she was blessed.

This time, she wasn't surprised when the the sky ripped again and turned a dark navy blue. It was irritating when it made everything harder to see though. ' _That must be the point! Each time is supposed to be more challenging than the last- and gives you better loot too!'_

 _Ding! +1 Int_

' _All of these enemies are making me strong.'_ Lucy's heart filled with glee. She had won more exp points here than she did in any of her quests so far! Soon she would level up and grow even stronger than Gramps… strong enough to make him stay even. ' _That is a_ big _orange thingie.'_

The Devil Fruit helpfully corroborated this. ' _Boss Tangerine Approaching'_

"Observe."

' _The Boss Tangerine is, as the name rather implies, the Boss of all of the Blood Tangerines. It also wants to suck out your blood and would have done so, even if you hadn't angered it by killing all of his tangerine gang. Since you did anger it, it'll take a great deal of pleasure in eating you alive.'_

Her scattershot brain provided commentary to this. ' _Can Devil Fruits be sassy?'_

It was as tall as an average-sized child- so basically, taller than her- and had mean red eyes glaring directly at her. She cautiously eyed her health bar, that still had 85 HP left. Boss Tangerine had 200 HP. ' _Eh, I can take it.'_

The Boss Tangerine jumped forward. She tried to move to the left but it spun around like a bowling top and smacked her clean off her feet. Lucy flew straight into the grass, tucking in her elbows and rolling just like Gramps taught her, to keep any bones from breaking. She lost her branch mid-flight but fortunately, the Boss Tangerine seemed to need a few moments to regain its senses after spinning. The dark-haired girl winced when her Devil Fruit announced a loss of 10 HP.

' _I can't afford that!'_ Lucy jumped to her feet, scrambled around for her branch and then ran up at the Boss Tangerine. "Take that!"

 _Critical Strike! -20 HP!_

' _That still leaves it with 180 more!'_ Lucy made a sharp jump to the left, striking out wildly with her branch but hitting only air. ' _I only have 75 HP!'_

The Boss Tangerine made another rolling strike towards her, moving too quickly for her to dodge and tossing her back into the grass. Lucy managed to hold onto her branch this time and got another four hits in when it tried to regain its senses. That brought her enemy down to 140 but she was now at 65.

Another run through of the same left Boss Tangerine with 120 HP and her with 45 HP.

' _I can't keep losing health to beat this guy!'_ It may have worked at the beginning of the Dungeon but she had too little health to do it now. Okay, Plan B. Lucy didn't have one but she'd make it up.

"Hey, Fat, Orange and Ugly! Betcha can't catch me!" Lucy used one finger to pull down her right eye and stuck her tongue out. Then she turned tail and ran. Boss Tangerine could only hit in a straight line, so she zigged left, then right, then… ' _He's down for a second!'_

The dark-haired girl darted in with great speed and got two hits in. Rather than risk a few more, she cautiously darted back out and returned to running. "Ha! You call that a hit? I've met old princesses with better hits then that! Are you going to give up already, you- you- you crybaby? Crybaby! Crybaby! Boss Tangerine's a crybaby!"

It wasn't her best taunting but it got the job done. She was actually pretty lucky that she'd been running a lot for Mayor Woop Slap's quest recently, since her legs were practically jelly when the Boss Tangerine turned to a massive cloud of smoke. Lucy dropped to her knees, panting for breath.

It was done. She had done it. She had beat the Boss Tangerine.

Ding! +300 Exp

Ding! Dungeon Completed!

Ding! +1 STR

Ding! Player reached Level 6!

There were six 1000 B notes where the Boss Tangerine had been. Lucy reached out to tiredly grab them and when they all fell to green dust, the world around her blurred. A second later and she was back at the forest, with a sky that had fallen into a dusky evening light. Lucy's eyes bugged out.

"I'm-so-late-Makino-nee-is-going-to-freak-out-so-much!"

Not bothering to check what else had changed, the dark-haired girl jumped to her feet, found a sudden deep well of newfound energy and sprinted to Foosha Village. She was now at Level 6! Now to make sure that she didn't _die_ at that level too.

' _Just you wait, Gramps! When you come home, I will be the strongest person in Foosha!'_

x

Player: Monkey D. Lucillia

Title: Hyperactive, Monkey Bastard (-40% to Reputation, -20% to Academics)

Level: 6

Exp: 63/3600

Gamer Mind: Passive

HP: 150/150

WP: 150/150

STR: 6 (+1)

VIT: 4 (+1)

DEX: 3

INT: 8

CHM: 3 (+1)

WIS: 4 (+1)

Unused Points: 0

Aspects:

Monkey Family Strength: Lvl. 1 (+1/5 STR, +1/5 VIT)

Conqueror's Haki: Lvl. 1 (Blocked, +5/5 STR, +50% Exp. Active)

Will of the D: (+25% Exp Always Active, +2/5 CHM)

Daughter of the Dragon (+100 Rep. Boost with RA, -100 Rep. Boost with FES, +1/5 WIS, +1/5 CHM)

Skills:

Reading/Writing/Math: Poor (10/100)/ Poor (40/100)/ Adequate (70/100)

Cooking/Cleaning/Sewing: Awful (70/100)/Poor (20/100)/Awful (0/100)

Weapons [Bo-Staff/Sai/Tessen]: Awful (0/100)/Awful (0/100)/Awful (0/100)

Seafaring Knowledge: Poor (10/100)

Hand-to-Hand Combat: Awful (0/100)

Reputation:

Five Elder Stars: Unfriendly (0/100)

Revolutionary Army: Friendly (0/100)

Foosha Town: Unfriendly (36/100)

Marineford: Neutral (0/100)

Money [$1 = 100 B]: 13600 B

x

 _And the obligatory Dungeon scene is done! I'll probably skim over the other parts of the Game available to her now, which doesn't include Gamer's Body. I wanted to have certain aspects of the Game unlocked to her as she recruits members of the crew. Zoro will bring Gamer's Body with him and each of the other main Straw Hat members will have their own bonuses. Coming up next: Ace!_


	4. Kidnapping a Prince

Chapter Four

In the three months since Gramp's left, Lucy levelled up four times more. Each time was harder than the last but reaching Level 10 made her bonus aspects kick in. Monkey Family Strength, which gave her an additional STR and VIT point for every five levels, added +2 STR and +2 VIT at Level 10. This was added to all of the stat points she'd managed to rack up through her quests and dungeon grinds.

Lucillia's day fell into a demanding but profitable routine. She would wake up in the morning and add a few points to her available skill set, primarily Cleaning and Cooking, by making her room and helping Makino-nee with breakfast. Her Cooking skill had gone from 70 to a full 100 within two weeks, moving from the standard of Awful to just Poor and then past Poor to Adequate. Now it rested at Good with 20/100 but she no longer got any benefit from making breakfast or lunch, since it had become secondhand to her.

After that, Lucy would be funneled to the bar, where she would work on her sums and letters under Makino-nee's guidance. The green-haired woman had been pleasantly surprised by the new diligence of her student, though not as much as Lucy was to find that she could maintain her concentration. Before, the letters 'd' and 'b' or 'm' and 'w' would flip with one another, and the other words would dance around the page. Now it was still a challenge but one that she could muddle through and that got progressively easier, the more she practiced. And Lucy had to do _a lot_ of practice. At some point, it felt like the entire world was conspiring against her. Makino-nee made her read aloud from the cookbook, the Mayor handed her books on boring topics like 'leadership' and 'manners' that he insisted she read (in front of him, to prove she wasn't slacking off) and the _Geemu Geemu no Mi_ increased the amount of details in her Observe.

It was exhausting! It brought her Reading skill up from Poor (0/100) up four whole standards to Accomplished (40/100) but it was still exhausting. At least she had won another 6 INT points for it.

' _It would have gone even faster if I had_ Skill Absorb _,'_ the dark-haired girl recalled with a pout. Lucy had been so excited when she'd picked up a book and the option appeared. The ability to immediately acquire a new and useful skill? That sounded amazing! Too amazing, it seemed, as no matter how many times she shouted 'yes' into the air, eventually bringing Makino-nee running, Skill Absorb didn't work. Instead the _Geemu Geemu no Mi_ said that it lacked the proper Party Member to activate, which Lucy read to mean she needed friends.

The dark-haired girl had immediately set out to find one. First, she had needed to shed the title of the 'Hyperactive Monkey Bastard', which already depressed her reputation and skill points. Lucy had gone on every quest she could get her hands on that improved her reputation in Foosha. From picking fruit to running errands to sorting fish bait to feeding sheep, she had painstakingly raised her reputation from Unfriendly (36/100) to Friendly (25/100) in Foosha Town. The effort earned her five more points to her CHM stat and smiles from the residents but didn't unlock the Skill Absorb she so coveted. She had become rather upset by that and unlaid her woes at the feet of her most sympathetic ear.

"I'm sorry that your powers are being uncooperative, Lucy." Makino-nee placed a glass of orange juice by her side and patted her back. The bar was mostly empty at this hour, so she sat by the forlorn girl. "Why can't you use this… Skill Absorb… again?"

"I don't have any good friends," Lucy moped. "I mean, you're cool, Makino-nee but the Devil Fruit hasn't added you to my Party yet, so I don't think you'll be able to unlock it."

"Haven't the other children been inviting you to their games though?"

"None of them are any fun." Not compared to improving her stats or gaining exp points anyway. Lucy had gone regardless to seek herself a Party Member. "And they can't unlock my powers either."

"I see." The pretty barkeep stapled her fingers together, rested her chin on her hands and looked at her. "Lucy, why do you want to make a friend?"

"So I can unlock Skill Absorb!"

"Is that the only reason?"

"Ah, well… maybe?" Lucy fidgeted in her seat. Neechan's tone hadn't changed but somehow, she just felt like the older woman was disappointed. "The Skill Absorb would make me a lot stronger-"

"I understand that it can be beneficial for you, Lucy, but is that the only reason you want to find a friend?" Makino inquired softly. "And if it is, do you think that's a fair reason?"

"Fair?" The dark-haired girl echoed the word with a furrowed brow. What did fairness have to do with it? She just wanted to use more of her Devil Fruit powers.

"For your friend," the barkeep clarified. At the confusion on her ward's face, she changed tactics. "You and I are friends, aren't we?"

"Yes, of course!"

"Well, I can't unlock Skill Absorb. Does that mean I'm not a good friend?"

"But Neechan can do so many other things," Lucy answered earnestly. "Neechan makes me food and helps me finish my worksheets!"

"You've gotten better at cooking and you don't need as much help with your homework. Does that mean you don't need to be my friend anymore?"

' _Why would Neechan ask that question? Cooking and teaching is what Neechan does.'_ She thought the green-haired woman might be growing upset but she didn't know why. Gramps paid Makino-nee to do all of that, didn't he? Like he did that woman from High Town that visited twice a week to increase Lucy's DEX stat. But that woman would leave when Lucy's lessons were done. Makino-nee never left and Lucy didn't want her to either.

' _Is Neechan saying this because she has to leave too?!_ '

No! Makino-nee couldn't leave! It took weeks to sail to the Grand Line and back. Even Gramps' shortest trips took no less than six months.

"Makino-nee can't leave!" The petite girl's elbow sent the glass clattering to the floor when she threw herself into the woman's arms. "I don't want you to leave! You'll be hurt if you go!"

 _Ding! +5 Rep with Satoru Makino_

Gramps' warned her about the scary world out there. There were Sea Kings and pirates and islands full of cannibals and cannibalistic pirates… And Makino-nee didn't have a Marine coat!

The woman made a soft wheeze of protest as 18 kilos of pure little girl tackled her back. She barely managed to not fall off the stool. "Lucy, I'm not going to leave!"

"Promise?" Luminous ink-toned eyes looked up at her suspiciously.

"I promise, but Lucy the point I was trying to make, is that friends are chosen because they make us happy, not to improve powers." Makino smiled brightly at her. "Maybe one day, you'll find someone that will unlock your power for you but don't pick friends just for that, okay? It won't be fair for them."

' _This again… what does fairness have to do with it?'_ Lucy nodded nonetheless. As long as Makino-nee didn't plan on leaving, she'd agree to anything. ' _Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Gramps said my powers are special. Maybe… maybe, I need to find someone else special to unlock them. Someone different. Someone that I won't find in Foosha.'_

 _Ding! +1 WIS_

The ringing chime made her look up. Deciding that the _Geemu Geemu no Mi_ agreed with her, Lucy put a temporary hold on her search for friends. Makino's valuable lesson hadn't been learnt then but that day, the first kernel of her future had been planted. The dark-haired girl needed a friend from outside of Foosha… and for that, she would have to one day leave the village.

Lucillia had earned two more WIS points alone in that time. The first was when she realized that the money earned from her quests was more valuable to her than Gramps' checkbook. Garp always filled out a full checkbook with signatures for 100,000 B per check before he left. This significant amount of beli was entrusted to his five-year-old granddaughter, a move that would have been far more risky if Lucy actually cared to buy anything. Instead she left it in her inventory, mostly to avoid the walking distance to leave it in her desk, and would otherwise have forgotten about it, if the icon didn't appear whenever she checked her 'hoard'. And Lucy adored checking on her hoard. There was something incredibly satisfying about watching the beli count upwards, especially when it was _her_ beli.

The second WIS point came when she met Madam Tollards. She mostly worked with social climbing merchant children and the occasional rare noble and her rates, 10,000 B an hour, reflected that. Makino-nee paid her double that for two hours a week, and then twice more, when Madam Tollards offered ballet lessons. Lucy had one trial lesson and gained a single DEX in that one hour to demand further tuition. It ended up with the Madam receiving 80,000 B every week and Lucy sacrificing her Monday and Wednesday afternoons for violin and ballet lessons respectively. This practice had gained her nine DEX points so far. The dark-haired girl's WIS point though had come from something else.

Madame Tollards treated her _really_ nicely. Lucy would have like that, except it was with the same shiny smile that the merchants had on whenever people from Edge Town came down to order fresh stock. And the Madame hadn't smiled at her once in her first week- though she hadn't said anything about her not having parents either, so good for the Madam- and only started after Makino-nee handed over the first of Garp's signed checks. The woman's eyes had widened at the name and she had been very kind to her thereafter.

' _Gramps' name is important,'_ Lucy realized, and seconds later, ' _I don't want people to like me cause of_ Baka _Gramps.'_

Lucillia generally forgave her grandfather for sailing away within hours of when he returned.

Still, she dedicated herself to the lessons and brought her Ballet skills up to Good (20/100). Her Violin skills were a notch below that, since it involved less movement, but Adequate (90/100) wasn't that bad either. On the afternoons where she wasn't with the Madam, Lucy either worked on one of her half-finished projects from Gramps or visited Woop Slap. He always had some piece of wisdom or the other to give her and while she didn't understand everything, trailing after him had won four WIS points and five CHM. People found it cute when the little girl became the Mayor's unofficial assistant and well, Lucy had never been one to refuse free candy. Her reputation with the Mayor increased to Friendly (35/100) and in accordance to that, she generously decided that he would be the one princess she wouldn't kidnap. He was very busy with his current job. Mayors had a lot of paperwork. She would know; she had to stamp them all.

On the weekends, Lucy would visit the Blood Tangerine dungeons. Her prizes from there were never as high as the first time, eventually dwindling to only 4000 B after defeating the Boss. She didn't mind. It added seven STR and VIT to her stats and the orange loot remained constant. Besides, with the beli gained from the dungeon and the quests, Lucy now had a hoard of 103,600 B. Sure, even one of Gramps' checks could almost equal that amount but Lucy was proud of herself regardless. Every dragon's hoard had to start from somewhere and hers looked to be a promising one.

Still… another Dungeon might have even _better_ loot for her hoard.

x

Monkey D. Lucillia, Dragon, was wandering through the forest. She climbed up a tree. She climbed down a tree. She climbed up another tree. She climbed down another tree. She said Observe a lot. She hit a few wild beasts with Sir Tree Branch VI (the successor of Sir Tree Branches I through V, and the initial, unnamed tree branch that she posthumously named Patrick). She climbed up yet another tree. Some of the bears were just too big for Sir Tree Branch VI.

"You're doing a good job anyway," she assured, patting its gnarled, wooden bark. Lucy had packed her inventory for a weekend jaunt in the woods. She didn't know what would be necessary for the trip, so she mostly just emptied the fridge, threw in half her closet and added anything that wasn't nailed down or too heavy for her to lift in the basement. The basement had all of Gramps' toys. Shame that harpoon gun was too big for her. "Do you think we should go left or right?"

Tree Branch VI did not answer. He was the strong, silent type.

"Left it is then. Inventory Open." Lucy reached inside for some raw meat to distract the bear.

Had anyone come by then, they would be treated to a truly strange sight. Perched at the lowest branches of a high sycamore was a dark-haired little girl in a white sundress with red flowers at the hem. A red ribbon kept short locks of raven hair from flying into oval-shaped black eyes while a proper crossing of knee high white socks kept the skirt from swaying in the wind. The girl appeared indifferent to the massive bear clawing at the wood beneath her, reaching out to what appeared to be thin air. As her hand moved back, a large slab of marbled steak followed. It was thrown well away from her chosen path and when the bear wandered off to find it, the girl neatly climbed back down.

"Observe." The girl blinked twice, looked disappointed and turned to the tree branch she held like a walking staff. "Not this one either."

Lucy wandered off. She had been here since early morning and since breakfast, second breakfast and early brunch were all done, it should be almost noon. That meant lunchtime was approaching and while the dark-haired girl looked forward to that, Makino-nee ordered her home before dinner.

' _And not even one dungeon to be found.'_ Her thoughts were grumpy but her spirits still relatively high. She used Sir Tree Branch VI to clear away some leaves from a nearby boulder and then climbed up for lunch. It was simple- sandwiches and fresh fruit- but filling her stomach made her far more optimistic.

"Observe, Observe, Obse- can't that man keep quiet?" Lucy looked up irritably from where she was reading the description of yet another tree's history. Then she realized something. "Wait, there's someone _else_ here?!"

This forest was filled with man-eating beasts and poisonous plants. By the Gods, why would anyone spend time _here_?

' _I don't count. I need it for dragon training.'_ Even if this were not a dungeon, it was more interesting than wandering around the forest with no idea of where to go. Lucy promptly turned towards the sound, still holding Sir Tree Branch VI tightly in her grasp, and strained her ears. It looked to have stopped somewhere, still a few meters away, and near rushing water.

' _The river!'_ While Lucy's strength and reach may be limited by her height, her speed was not. The petite girl quickly ran past the trees towards where she'd passed the river an hour ago. She was careful to stay in shadows; who knew what kind of crazy person might be found alone in the woods? ' _Is that a_ boy _?'_

The dark-haired girl plastered herself to the side of a tree trunk, peering out with dark eyes widened in fascination. It was! It was a boy!

' _I've never seen one like_ him _before.'_

It's not like the boys in the village didn't get dirty or bruised sometimes but they never had as many cuts and scrapes on their skin as this boy did. They didn't have metal pipes in their hands to bash at alligators either. The boy was rather good at it. His blows matched the murderous look in his eyes too.

"Observe." Lucy whispered it quietly under her breath, still enraptured.

' _Name: Portgas D. Ace_

 _Level: 14_

 _Unfriendly (30/100)_

 _The only son of Pirate King Gol D. Roger, Ace has been raised his entire life thinking that he doesn't deserve to exist for his cursed bloodline. He distrusts everyone in the world around him and plans to become a pirate and make his own name one day.'_

' _He wants to be a criminal, huh?_ ' Lucy pondered on the oddity of finding such a boy. Not only was he at a higher level than she was but he seemed to dislike her even though they'd never met. ' _And the son of the Pirate King?!'_

The son of a king… had to be a princess, didn't he? Or a prince, technically, since he was a boy but she was certain that would still do.

' _Mayor Woop Slap has too much work to be kidnapped but this boy could be my first prince!'_ Lucy nearly clapped her hands with glee. She had the makings of a promising hoard with her but hadn't a single prince or princess to her name. And how could she be a proper dragon without a prince or two?

' _No, Lucy, remember what Makino-nee said,'_ she reminded herself sternly. ' _You can't count your omelets until the hens lay eggs. Or something. You're not strong enough to fight him face-to-face.'_

Mayor Woop Slap said if one couldn't handle their obstacles directly, they should work around them.

' _So sneak up on him when he's done fighting and knock him out with Sir Tree Branch VI.'_ Lucy would need some way to bring him back to the village too. She didn't want to risk summoning the inventory aloud but she wished she had opened inventory before- oh! ' _All I have to do is think about it?'_

The familiar glowing blue box had appeared. One square had a rope icon on it that she immediately reached for. Then, testing her hypothesis, she mentally dismissed it. A smug grin crossed her face when the inventory closed.

' _I'm going to catch myself a prince~!'_ Lucy spied the boy's shoes at the side of the river, though unfortunately not her side. ' _I'll have to jump across. Maybe with that log…'_

It took a few minutes more but her prince was soon done hunting himself an alligator. Hefting it on his shoulders, and wobbling a little from the weight, he walked back to shore. Tightly holding Ser Tree Branch VI, Lucy followed.

' _Not a log! Not a log! Not a log!'_ The dark-haired girl screamed a little when the green 'log' she'd jumped on started to move. Rather than have it buckle her off, she ran down its slippery surface, made an erratic jump to land and stumbled over the dirt. Only Ser Tree Branch VI digging into the wet soil kept her from falling over (and utterly ruining her dress). Her prince turned around, eyes bugged out, at the sudden disturbance but before he could say anything- or reach for his pipe- she swung.

 _Thwack_! And Prince Ace was down.

So was she.

Lucy hadn't recovered her balance, so when she swung that tree branch, she also dislodged the only object keeping her up. Without it, she tumbled forward and landed- not all that gracefully, despite her ballet lessons- on Ace. Her head was somewhere in the vicinity of his neck and chest and when she looked up, it was to a very much unconscious boy.

' _Oh! He has so many freckles on his face!'_

They looked a little bit like the stars that Gramps' used for navigation. She pushed herself up to her arms, still hovering over him and taking in all of the other details. His shaggy hair looked like it had lost a fight to a drunk with a blunt pair of scissors. His sleeveless red shirt was tight and faded from too many washes, more pink than red in places, and rather frayed. His forehead was bandaged but it didn't look clean. He really should have changed it.

' _I'll change it when I get home,'_ Lucy decided and proceeded to bring out her rope. She didn't know any specific knot, so mainly just closed it around him a couple of times and looped the long half through the bottom. Then she grabbed the other end and proceeded to drag him across the ground.

The weight wasn't too bad, since she was extraordinarily strong for her age but having to slow down to find the proper path wasn't fun. It took at least half an hour to tie him to some vines and swing him across the river. He woke up once but another hit with Ser Tree Branch VI knocked him right out.

Ser Tree Branch VI died a swift, ignoble death when she accidentally dropped it in the river though. Lucy would have gone back to get him, except, you know, _alligators._

' _I'm sure Ser Tree Branch VII will be a worthy successor.'_ She clambered up the closest tree and snapped off another sturdy branch. "Fare thee well, Ser. You will be missed."

Lucy had made it another two meters before she was heard another shout.

"Aaaacccceee? Where are you?! I got my catch already!"

' _Another boy?'_ The dark-haired girl stopped dragging her prince along and propped him below a tree. Then she smoothed out her skirt and cupped her hands. "He's here!"

It would be rude to leave without letting her prince say his goodbyes after all.

The shout brought the other boy running and Lucy didn't have to wait for long until a blonde had broken through the brushwood. He wasn't as cut-up as her prince but his short hair was pasted to his forehead with sweat. He had the kind of springy hair that would make the loveliest curls if they were ever grown. "Ace?!"

Then the blonde's attention turned to her and he threateningly raised his pipe. "What are you doing with Ace?!"

"One moment, please. I'll answer all of your questions when he's awake." Ace would have questions too certainly and Lucy didn't want to answer twice.

Beside her, Ace stirred again. This time, she didn't send him back to darkness.

' _He needs to be awake to say his goodbyes.'_ Lucy allowed the boy to return to consciousness, even giving him a second or two to look around himself. ' _The blonde must be his friend.'_

"Who the hell are you?" Ace demanded, once he had seen her. He started struggling around on the ground but the rope stayed firm. "Where are you taking me?"

"I'm Monkey D. Lucillia. It's a pleasure to meet you," Lucy chirped, bowing slightly. First impressions were Important. "I'm taking you to my lair." It wasn't a cave or anything but her house wasn't that bad either. It had a dark basement.

The dark-haired boy responded to this with a brief look of shock and then a string of words that Lucy would have been grounded for.

The blonde was more distinct. "You're kidnapping Ace?"

The dark-haired girl beamed. "Yes!"

 _Ding! -5 Rep with Outlook Sabo_

The blonde looked a bit baffled. "Why? Do you work for Bluejam?"

"Bluejam?" Her head tilted to the side in evident contemplation. "It's fine but I prefer strawberry."

"Strawberry?"

"Strawberry jam!" She should have packed some with her. Then she could have shown the blonde that it was far superior to blueberry jam. "It's less tart and I think the sweetness goes well with muffins."

The blonde was utterly silenced by her immovable argument.

The prince, sadly, was not. "That idiot's not a pirate! She's a Marine's granddaughter!"

"A what?!" The blonde looked worried now, while she took the opportunity to whisper Observe under her breath.

' _Outlook Sabo_

 _Level: 11_

 _Unfriendly (5/100)_

 _A runaway noble from the Goa Kingdom, Sabo despises the selfishness, malice and intolerance of his social class. He has a sharp mind and a gentle heart and wants to sail the world and record all its wonders one day.'_

' _He's stronger than me too.'_ Lucy realized in surprised wonder. He looked a little older admittedly and it was not that significant a difference but none of the other children were near this high. And while nobles weren't known for high STR and VIT, she shouldn't risk a fight here either. She had already gotten surprised several times today. ' _I'll have to work around him too.'_

A sneak attack wouldn't work. He was standing right in front of her.

"Hey, pay attention to us when we're talking to you!" Ace shouted, drawing her out of her mind.

"What do plan to do to Ace, Marine?" The blonde followed up. "You know he's a pirate, don't you?!"

' _Well, if I hadn't known by Observe, then you would have told me,'_ Lucy thought dryly. ' _That's a good question though. What do dragons do with their princesses?'_

She had kidnapped him but she didn't know the finer details of what came afterward. There might have been a knight at some point- that could be the blonde. And the princess had to stay at a high tower. Maybe her roof would do. The knight had to save the princess before the dragon… Oh.

"I'm going to eat him."

"..." The dark-haired boy abruptly restarted his struggles to escape.

"You want to… eat him?"

"He looks delicious." He did not. "And I am very hungry." That was true but then she had prepared an pre-dinner snack for this, hadn't she?

There was a plan! "I have sandwiches. I'll trade you some, if you let me leave with Ace."

Lucy would just have to keep her prince on the roof until Sabo arrived to pick him up later. They could have a fierce duel on the lawn!

"Sabo's not going to trade me for some sandwiches," Ace yelled at her indignantly.

"Hey, wait a second!" The aforementioned Sabo waved his hands in the air. "I haven't refused the offer yet!"

"SHE WANTS TO EAT ME! GET ME AWAY FROM THIS GIRLS!"

"Please consider it." Lucy put her hands together in plea and looked at the blonde with wide, slight watery, luminous black eyes. They almost always worked on Gramps. "He's my prince!"

"Your prince, huh?" Sabo looked at her calculatingly. "What kind of sandwiches?"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT KIND OF SANDWICHES?!"

"Roast chicken, beef and turkey. I made three of each and have a bottle of orange juice with me too."

Sabo tapped his chin consideringly. "Hmm… how long until you plan to eat him?"

The dark-haired boy paled. His freckles stood out like a handful of tiny daylight stars. "Stop playing her crazy game, Sabo!"

The blonde took another look at his friend and then sighed. "I would have stolen you back after I got the meat, Ace."

Then he hefted his pipe, swung it forward in one sharp, familiar motion and fell to a sharp stance. "Let's fight."

Lucy took one look at Ser Tree Branch VII, freshly snapped from a random tree in the forest and far inferior to even the rusted pipe in the boy's hand. Then she looked up at the sky. It was close to evening and Makino-nee would be closing the bar in less than two hours. "You win."

"Huh?" Under Sabo's bemused glance, she performed a quasi-pirouette to dodge his next blow and then danced back on her feet.

"I have to go!" Then, remembering his words, she mentally called her inventory open and took out her pre-dinner snack. The sandwiches and juice bottle were kept in one of the many soft plastic lunch boxes she had bought with her hoard money. "Here! You can have this!"

The runaway noble looked rather taken aback as the petite girl suddenly changed her priorities and seemed to pluck a lunch box from out of nowhere. He still managed to catch it though and then laid it down to untie his friend. His reward for that was a knuckle punch from his friend for even pretending to consider the girl's offer.

By the time Ace was freed though, his mysterious dark-haired assailant had disappeared.

"Who was she?" Sabo asked, as he munched on the delicious sandwich.

"A Monkey." Ace savagely bit into his own sandwich, mist grey eyes unerringly focused on the trees where the girl had last stood. "She's a gods bedamned Monkey…"

x

Player: Monkey D. Lucillia

Level: 10

Exp: 204/10,000

Gamer Mind: Passive

HP: 650/650

WP: 650/650

STR: 13 (+2)

VIT: 11 (+2)

DEX: 12

INT: 14

CHM: 13 (+6)

WIS: 11 (+2)

Unused Points: 5

Aspects:

Monkey Family Strength: Lvl. 1 (+1/5 STR, +1/5 VIT)

Conqueror's Haki: Lvl. 1 (Blocked, +5/5 STR, +50% Exp. Active)

Will of the D: (+25% Exp Always Active, +2/5 CHM)

Daughter of the Dragon (+100 Rep. Boost with RA, -100 Rep. Boost with FES, +1/5 WIS, +1/5 CHM)

Skills:

Reading/Writing/Math: Accomplished (40/100)/ Good (20/100)/ Good (70/100)

Cooking/Cleaning/Sewing: Good (20/100)/Adequate (65/100)/Adequate (0/100)

Violin/Ballet: Adequate (90/100), Good (20/100)

Reputation:

Five Elder Stars: Unfriendly (0/100)

Revolutionary Army: Friendly (0/100)

Foosha Town: Friendly (40/100)

Marineford: Neutral (0/100)

Money [$1 = 100 B]: 103600 B

x

 _Ace has entered the story! Don't worry the ASL trio won't be at odds for long, though initial conflict can be expected. This chapter has a significant time passage involved, so I apologize to any readers that may be confused. In the future, I'll try to streamline more of the effects of Lucy's training. This one was lengthened to illustrate two things though. The first is that not all of the effects of the Geemu Geemu no Mi are positive. As you may have noticed, Lucy didn't learn her lesson from Makino about valuing friends for their own self-worth. While she will still do so, as it's in Lucy's character to value her loved ones, there was a seed planted of another problem. Lucy thinks that her Gamer abilities make herself, and those in her Party,_ special _. While that is not untrue to an extent, it will leave her developing a measure of arrogance towards others, like the sedate, normal residents of Foosha who don't have her strength, skills or, frankly speaking, inherited advantages. Humility wasn't a trait her canon self showed often but neither was arrogance. And Lucy is starting to develop the initial stages of arrogance, so this is to prove that negative effects occur and that Lucy isn't, morally speaking, a perfect person. She has her flaws. Some shared with Luffy and some that are entirely her own._

 _Second, on the subject of skills. I write Skills and Reputations in stages. They go from:_

 _For Reputations: Hostile - Unfriendly - Neutral - Friendly - Loved - Exalted_

 _For Skills: Awful - Poor - Adequate - Good - Accomplished - Exceptional_

 _When I say (x/100) for a particular skill, that applies to the stage too. So Lucy can be 90/100 Awful in Cooking and when she gets +10 Cooking, it takes her to 100/100. This means that she's cleared the stage and moved from Awful to Poor. But that also sets the bar down to 0. Now Lucy's 0/100 Poor. I understand this can be a bit confusing, so I elaborated a little on it within the chapter itself and here. Hopefully this clears up any questions._


	5. Buy a Shovel

Chapter Five

In the week before Lucillia could go out again, her mind flitted back often to her wild forest prince and his blonde knight. The dark-eyed girl daydreamed about them when she practiced her plies and releves, filed Mayor Woop Slap's paperwork and snuggled under the bed for Makino-nee's fairytales (never quite as engaging as Gramp's battles but more informative now that she spoke of dragons and princesses). She couldn't wait to find the two again. They would have so much fun together! She would kidnap Ace and Sabo would save him and somewhere along the way, Lucy would amass enough experience points to transform into a dragon!

It wasn't just fierce scowls and adorable freckles that distracted her though, the Spring Festival would start soon. It was a week of celebrations at the small town before planting season begun. There would be everything from delicious food stalls to prizes for competitions to nightly fireworks. The Mayor was busy organizing it all with village leaders and Lucy, as his erstwhile assistant (the man had an endless supply of candy mints and life advice), was roped into it all too. Mostly that meant running back and forth between people wanting things to be bigger, crazier, brighter and louder and the old man trying to corral that energy into actually getting things done. Lucy was surprisingly helpful to that end. The Mayor was too weak to beat down most idiots but the five-year-old was an excellent enforcer.

"Bottle rockets are against village regulation!" Lucy snapped, cracking her tree branch against the thick skull of the boy that had brought this before her for the _third_ time now. "It's illegal to use any fireworks that can move horizontally in the celebrations. Find a vertical one or use a Catherine Wheel. I don't care but stop bringing this hazard here!"

Ding! +1 STR

"Well done, Lucillia," the old man approved, as they left the sulking teens behind with big lumps on their head. "Don't forget to add that all pyrotechnics need to have switches of at least ten inches."

Ink-toned eyes were dismayed. "You don't think those morons will submit a request _again,_ do you?"

"At least twice more, I'm sure," Woop Slap sighed. "Ignoring basic safety rules in the reckless pursuit of adrenaline is the folly of youth."

The Gamer nodded. "If we added an addendum to increase the switch length and only limited to the beaches, can't we approve a few?"

"To go through so much additional effort for just a few people is foolish when such an important event is coming up."

"I can get it done," Lucy offered. "It's a few sheets of paperwork at the office in Edge Town, right? You'll have to look it over and sign it but I'll handle everything else."

A dubious look crossed her mentor's face. "I don't know…"

"Oh, come on, Mayor," the dark-haired girl coaxed. "Think of how happy it would make the boys. And I don't need anyone to escort me. I can hitch a ride on the woodchopper's wagon to the city."

"That's true," the man allowed. A suspicious glint entered his eye. "Why do you want to go to Edge Town, Lucillia?"

' _Nothing ever gets past the old man, does it_?' Lucy pouted. "I found books on how to make traps in the library. I want to buy rope, hooks and stakes at the shops."

"You're still going into the forest? I thought you stopped that after Makino set you straight." The suspicion was replaced by concern now. "The forest is dangerous for little girls."

' _I'm not any little girl. I'm a Monkey,_ ' Lucy scowled. ' _How can I get stronger than Gramps if everyone expects me to stay at home and mind the kitchen?'_

No one expected Gramps to mind the kitchen. He kept setting it on fire.

She winced at the memory of Makino-nee's scolding though. Her caretaker had not been pleased when she came to dinner late, dirty and scratched. "I've gone there before and survived fine, Mayor."

"Even then, there's no reason for you to heedlessly risk your own life by going to the forest. Why in _my_ day…" Lucy tuned the man out. Those four words were inevitably followed by a boring lecture. It was an impressive feat for the old man to keep it up all the way from his office (where she picked up the requisite forms) to the Partys Bar.

"Bye, Mayor!" Lucy turned and waved at him. "I'll have these back to you tomorrow!"

She ran back inside to help Makino-nee prepare the lunch special. Afterward, the dark-haired girl devoted an hour to her fraction worksheet before abandoning it to work on her lair. The basement in the Monkey house was half storage room, half wine cellar but through her added strength, Lucy managed to push everything to the corner. Then she mopped, dusted, changed the light bulb and even washed the narrow windows at the upper edge wall. One of the panes had been cracked and she didn't yet know how mend glass, so she just covered it up along the way with butterfly stickers. Lucillia also filled the cooler with extra juice boxes, so Ace would have something to snack on while he waited for his knight to save him.

In the end, she was satisfied. ' _Now_ this _is how a lair should look.'_

Lucy would have even broken out Gramps' checkbook for a lava pit, if Makino-nee would have let her get away with it.

As it was, the barkeep had been utterly bemused by her efforts. "This is quite nice, Lucy, but why are you cleaning the basement?"

The dark-haired spoke honestly. "It's for Ace."

" _Ace_?" Makino looked hopeful. "Is that a new friend of yours?"

Lucy nodded vigorously. "He's my prince!"

" _Prince?_ " The wide grin on the older woman was starting to tug at Lucy's suspicions. "Will you invite him home then?"

' _Why is Makino-nee looking at me like that?'_ A little more cautious, she ventured. "Uh, yeah. That's what the cleaning's for."

"Do you have a day in mind? I want to make snacks."

Lo and behold, the suspicions in Lucy's mind were dispelled. Makino-nee just wanted to prepare a treat to celebrate her ascension into dragonhood! She had the best big sister in the world. "I'll bring him here on Saturday."

"I'll be ready!" Makino clapped her hands together and giggled into them. "I'll have to buy a cameko snail first. And call Garp! Oh, his reaction will be priceless. Does this Ace have any allergies?"

"Don't think so." Lucy smiled back at her sister's eagerness. It was nice to have such supportive family members. "He likes crocodiles."

As Makino headed upstairs to plot out crocodile-shaped cookies and green-icing cupcakes, Lucy returned to sorting the fridge. She decided to keep all the orange and cherry juices in the back, so Ace would eat yucky grape first and leave the good ones to her. The rest of the day proceeded as most of her days did and she clambered up to her room for a bedtime story. If this one, a tale of a pretty girl breaking into the house of seven short men, featured herself as a princess and a freckled boy as prince, than Lucy didn't call her out on it. There weren't any dragon roles for her to take after all.

The next day, Lucillia woke up way too early, ate far too many pancakes and then almost missed the wagon.

"Whoa, there! Up you go, little lady!" Her flying jump into the slowly moving wagon had her caught by a rough-and-tumble woodcutter with bulging muscles and kind eyes. He pulled her in and set her on a pile of seasoned lumber. "If it isn't Monkey D. Lucillia! Did the Mayor send you here?"

"Need- huff- file papers- huff- Edge Town," Lucy wheezed out. "Morning Mariko-san."

Mariko-san wasn't the gossiping sort but he could be talkative enough, if you started on grandchildren and worked up from there. The dark-eyed girl settled in to do just that. One of the Mayor's lessons had focused on the importance of intelligence-gathering, not that the old man framed it like that. He'd made it sound more like basic manners to ask after an acquaintance. Regardless, Lucy's bubbly nature, inherent empathy and natural inquisitiveness worked to great advantage here.

The trip to Edge Town took no more than an hour. Much of her cheer faded when they entered the walls. While the dark-eyed girl acknowledged this to be one of the cleanest and most orderly places she'd ever been to, she disliked actually visiting. There was an air here of tedium and discomfort. No one looked very happy and the nobles! Briefly did they visit and each time, she became more soured on them. With their noses so high in the air, it was a wonder that they managed to walk at all. Lucy didn't even want to collect them for her collection. They simply lacked the spark that Ace shone with.

Still, there was no other place for Lucy to get her supplies. She finished the paperwork first, as she _had_ promised Mayor Woop Slap to get it done, then went to a camping store. There were a lot of useful stuff to buy there. As she had beli to burn, the dark-haired girl dipped into her hoard and spent nearly 8,000 B on supplies. Medical kits, water purification pills, magnetic compasses, rope, more rope, lots more rope and a water bottle with kittens on it!

She also bought a shovel. You never know when you might need a shovel.

x

"All I'm saying is that she has sandwiches. And I wouldn't _leave_ you there."

The two friends were walking through the woods, counting the fruits of yesterday's labor. They hadn't stolen a lot of money from the gangs, so breakfast had been settled with a few scraps of bread each and a rotten apple. This had led to the blonde bringing up a scheme that had been debated back and forth for a week now. As usual, the dark-haired boy adamantly shot it down, despite his stomach growling at him.

"I don't care," Ace scowled. "That entire family's trouble. I don't want to be involved with them."

"Somehow, that statement just reeks of irony." Sabo paused. "Even if _we're_ avoiding her, that doesn't mean _she'll_ avoid us."

"It's been a week already, hasn't it?"

"True," the blonde wilted. "But she called you her 'prince'. How could she forget about you so soon, Ace? You're better than that."

He got an odd look for his morose words. "...She wants to eat me, Sabo. We don't _want_ to her to find- what the fuck?"

The two were halted entirely in their tracks when they saw a picnic laid before them. On a quilt was spread a royal feast of freshly baked bread, roasted meats, steamed fish, fresh fruit and even a platter piled high with sugar-dusted cakes. Two children's plastic cups, in blue and red, were filled with milk. There were even place settings… a child's scrawl had written out 'Ace' and 'Sabo' on them.

"This is a trap," Sabo said blankly.

"Definitely a trap," Ace agreed. They paused for a second, as their stomachs roared. "I'm hungry…"

"So am I." The blonde brought his metal pipe up and tapped it against his open palm. "We'll eat first. Then we can beat up your girlfriend."

His friend wasn't quite so bedazzled by the food, not to throw another scowl over. "She's not my girlfriend!"

Intending to snatch the food and make a run for it, the two boys leapt over to the quilt. For a heartbeat they stood there, surrounded by plenty and all too pleased with themselves, and then they screamed. The ground abruptly crumbled beneath them.

"Ace!"

"Sabo!"

The runaway noble tucked his arms to his chest as experience had unfortunately taught him, when he tumbled down the freshly dug hole. He landed on something soft and squishy and it was only after that soft and squishy thing punched his head that he realized it was Ace. Sabo hurriedly rose to his feet, looked back up at the dim light of the hole, and found that it was too deep to climb up alone. There was also some grape jelly on his hat and a slice of bread stuck to his jacket, but he solved the first problem handily with the second.

"Lucy!" A familiar, dark-haired figure with a smug grin poked her head through. "Hi, Ace!"

"Let me out of here, you $%*^&!" His friend diplomatically screamed back. The answer was rope thrown into the hole.

"Tie him up," Lucy commanded, pointing at the blue-clad boy. "No, tie _Ace_ up. I'll pull him out."

"What about me?" Sabo asked, critically looking over the rope. He'd seen this triple-twisted design before hadn't he? There was a shop at Edge Town that sold them for 100 beli a pair. Ooh, so Ace had a _rich_ girlfriend. "I need to get out too."

"I'll drop something down for you, after I have Ace," the crazy girl- Lucy- replied. "We need to leave soon. I promised Makino-nee to introduce her to my prince and then I have paperwork to finish."

' _Who would give a clueless girl like this paperwork?'_ Sabo wondered. She was still smiling happily down at them, despite Ace's stream of invectives, threats and poorly thrown foodstuffs at her. "I can't send Ace alone. I need to come along."

"Why?" Lucy cocked her head to the side, peering curiously down at them. "I won't hurt him."

"I know," Sabo assured, kicking his friend to keep him quiet. "It's- uh, as a chaperone."

"Chaperone?" Those luminous, dark eyes couldn't have appeared more innocently confused had she tried. "Why does Ace need a chaperone?"

"To safeguard his innocence," the blonde proclaimed. ' _And to keep him from committing murder.'_

The little girl, who was wearing a headband with cloth flowers on it this time around, making it appear as though she had a flower crown, considered this. "Okay. But Makino-nee spent a lot of time on lunch today, so you two _can't_ run away. You'll make her sad."

Then those dark eyes narrowed and something menacing crossed her round cheeks and button nose. "I don't want Makino-nee sad."

"Neither do we." Sabo assured, beads of sweat forming at the back of her neck. He turned to Ace, who had stayed silent but unhappy throughout this entire exchange. His voice lowered to a whisper. "We should go with her."

"Why?" Ace demanded back. "Let's just get back up there and then teach her to _never do this again_."

"There's no way she'll listen to us! First she knocked you out with a tree branch, then she dug a four meter hole! Do you know how long it takes to dig a four meter hole?"

"No. How long?"

"Not sure but she's tiny! It couldn't have been easy for her."

"Good point," Ace admitted sourly. "Then there's only one thing for us to do…"

Sabo nodded. He was already anticipating the grand meal awaiting them from this Makino-nee.

"...We have to kill her."

"Exact-" The words caught up to him. "What?! We can't _kill_ her."

"There's nothing else to do! She'll follow us forever unless we put her down." Ace grabbed the lapels of his coat, shaking him back and forth. "I don't have a choice, Sabo! She wants to eat me!"

"Maybe she doesn't mean that literally?" The blonde paled.

"I do. I want to eat him," Lucy called down, making them both jump. The dark-haired girl had sat down and was now swinging her feet from the hole. "You know that I can hear you, right?"

"We wouldn't have been discussing your murder if we knew that!" Ace looked at her defiantly. "Why the hell are you trying to eat me?!"

"Because you're a prince." Was the patient and wholly unhelpful answer.

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

' _I'm in a four meter hole, covered in jelly, listening to two idiots argue about one eating the other,'_ Sabo reflected. ' _Maybe I'm really asleep and the hunger pangs have given me weird dreams?'_

He pinched himself. Not asleep then.

"Excuse me," Sabo piped up, after picking up one of the few pastries to have hit the quilt and not the direct and shoving it in Ace's mouth. "But Ace isn't a prince."

"He's the son of the Pirate King, so, of course, he's a prince." The girl rolled her eyes. "I'm not _stupid_."

Ace promptly found death byway of raspberry parfait. It was lucky for him that the crust was so thin and delicate that it came out in spittle-flavored chunks instead. "How do you _know_ that?"

"My Devil Fruit," was the chirped reply.

The dark-haired boy turned incredibly pale. Then he flushed a deep red. Then his body started trembling and for once, Sabo saw true hatred flash through his friend's mist grey eyes. "Here to kill me for my old man then?"

There was a slow blink of luminous black eyes. The first frown Sabo had seen on Monkey D. Lucillia settled on her adorable face. "I don't want to kill Ace."

"You're here because I'm _his_ son. Because I'm a devil child. Because I don't even deserve to live."

' _Does… does Ace truly feel this way?'_ Sabo was stunned. He knew his friend's heritage and he knew Ace hated his father but… ' _He was always so confident.'_

Portgas D. Ace would scream his defiance at the world. He would demand the right to his existence. He would prove that he was here, that he _mattered_. It had been this strength that had attracted Sabo to him all those months before. To think that he had internalized all those words against Gold Roger…

"Everyone deserves to live," Lucy's answer came more quickly than his own. Sabo blamed that on shock. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"You dropped me into a trap in the woods," Ace shot back. "That's not- what do you think I am? Some _toy_ for you to play around with?!"

Lucillia's lips trembled. "No! No, I'm sorry. I wanted to be a dragon! I didn't want to hurt anyone-"

"Don't lie!" Those words practically exploded from his friend. "You and that shitty old man are just the same! You pretend that you're different- you pretend that you don't _care_ \- but in the end of the day, you're just like the rest! You hate me because I'm the son of the Pirate King! You'd rather I die!"

Sabo stepped back, as his friend practically threw himself forward. His nails scrambled for purchase against the packed soil, his body slid down anyway. A snarl took precedence on his features. Ace looked more a wild animal than a boy then. "Well, I won't! I won't die! I'll live, damn you all!"

There was a look of utter shock on Lucillia's face and then it was taken over by guilt. Sabo had to move back again, as she pushed herself into the hole, sliding down and tumbling arms first around Ace's chest. His friend pinwheeled back, unable to fight back against the tight grip burying dark hair into his dirty red shirt. For a second, the blonde worried that _she_ might be trying to murder Ace.

"I don't want you to die, Ace!" Even muffled against a chest, the words were still several decibels higher than most could manage. Sabo stuck his fingers into his ear and had the sudden thought that Ace had just found the one girl louder than he was. "I'm sorry I hunted you! I wasn't planning to eat you for real! I thought we could have cupcakes and juice until your knight came to save you."

' _Am I the knight?'_ Sabo hoped not. He'd rather be the cupcakes and juice captive.

"Let me go!" Ace ineffectually hit the girl with his fists. While the blonde winced in sympathy, the dark-haired girl kept her arms into a vice grip.

"I don't want Ace to die," she continued to wail. "You don't have to be my prince, if you don't want to! I'll find another one! I don't care if Ace is the Pirate King's son."

The dark-haired boy suddenly stilled. His barnacle didn't notice.

"All of those people are stupid," Lucy sniffled. "You can't _kill_ someone, just for being the Pirate King's son. Did someone say that to Ace? You can tell me! I'll beat 'em up for you."

"I'll help," Sabo volunteered. "Assholes won't know what's coming to them."

In the dim light of their hole, Ace tried to pull away but his barnacle refused to let go. Instead he managed to wiggle his arm free, using it knock relatively gently on the dark-haired girl's forehead to catch her attention. She looked up, owlish eyes filled with tears, to a strange expression on the freckled boy's face. Sabo would even say there was a shadow of a smile there.

"You would fight for me?" Ace asked. There was something almost… vulnerable in his expression.

"Of course!" Lucy snapped back. "It's not _right_ to treat you like that. Ace is a good person!"

"Oh…" He looked over to Sabo and the noble was surprised to find a small grin present. "Let's visit Makino then. I'm hungry."

"I can do that," Sabo agreed. "How do we get out of the hole though?"

The three children all fell to a silence, rather perplexed by the issue. Irritation was growing in Ace, while Lucy had her eyes sheepishly averted from him. Lucily, before violence could break out, a cheerful chime took everyone's attention.

Ding! Party Feature Activated!

Ding! Disguise Templates Activated!

x

Player: Monkey D. Lucillia

Level: 10

Exp: 204/10,000

Gamer Mind: Passive

HP: 650/650

WP: 650/650

STR: 14 (+2)

VIT: 11 (+2)

DEX: 12

INT: 14

CHM: 13 (+6)

WIS: 11 (+2)

Unused Points: 5

Aspects:

Monkey Family Strength: Lvl. 1 (+1/5 STR, +1/5 VIT)

Conqueror's Haki: Lvl. 1 (Blocked, +5/5 STR, +50% Exp. Active)

Will of the D: (+25% Exp Always Active, +2/5 CHM)

Daughter of the Dragon (+100 Rep. Boost with RA, -100 Rep. Boost with FES, +1/5 WIS, +1/5 CHM)

Skills:

Reading/Writing/Math: Accomplished (40/100)/ Good (20/100)/ Good (70/100)

Cooking/Cleaning/Sewing: Good (20/100)/Adequate (65/100)/Adequate (0/100)

Violin/Ballet: Adequate (90/100), Good (20/100)

Money [$1 = 100 B]: 95,800 B


End file.
